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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









V 



“Ah, Katherine, Katherine!” He Said 





THE MOULD 


Grace Kellogg Griffith 

') 


/ 


/ 

Illustrated by 

CHARLES HARGENS, Jr. 


) > 
> > 9 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1923 





COPYRIGHT 
1933 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



The Mould 


Manufacturing 

Plant 

Camden, N. J. 



NOV 30 ’23 ' 

\1 

\ 

©C1A7CG053’ 


\ K 


Made in the U. S. A. 




CONTENTS 


I. 

Clothes - 

- 


7 

II. 

A IIedda Gabler Coiffure 

- 

- 

28 

III. 

A Will and the Way 

- 

- 

45 

IY. 

Bored - 

- 

- 

72 

Y. 

A Philosopher’s Smile - 

- 

- 

86 

VI. 

The Conquering Hero - 

- 

- 

118 

VII. 

A Poor Hand Well Played 

- 

- 

144 

VIII. 

Hygiene and Hot Air - 

- 

- 

161 

IX. 

A House for Sale - 

- 

- 

186 

X. 

Disposing of Old Clothes 

- 

- 

195 

XI. 

Adventure - 

- 

- 

215 

XII. 

Brass Tacks - 

- 

- 

221 

XIII. 

Blanche - 

- 

- 

237 

XIV. 

Kesurrection - 

- 

- 

266 

XY. 

A Proposal of Marriage 

- 

- 

291 

XYI. 

Alpha and Omega - 

• 

- 

316 













The Mould 


CHAPTER I 

CLOTHES 

(l) 

The Montescue School has a brilliant and wide¬ 
spread reputation as a moulder of young women. From 
its native heath, which is Boston, Massachusetts, all 
the way to Spokane, Washington, and from Chicago 
to New Orleans, it is known, not so much by its ad¬ 
vertisements, which are small and inconspicuous, as by 
its annual output of charmingly distinguished alumnae. 
From Philadelphia to Los Angeles, Montescue’s June 
graduates are always among January’s choicest de¬ 
butantes. 

It never fails with a girl, they say; it has a “ way,” 
a deft mysterious touch. It will take the rawest lump 
of adolescent day, and, four years later, turn it out: 
a delightful, graceful bit of feminine pottery. 

Montescue’s deplores deeply and frequently, to the 
mothers of its girls, and others, the rise in these days 
of a type of school which seems to ignore the im¬ 
portance of Social Ease; and which, far from helping 
relate the girl to her appointed life, is disjointing her 
and it by interesting her in social problems, democratic 
theories, silly and pernicious propaganda about use- 

7 


8 


TEE MOULD 


fulness, productivity, individual freedom of develop¬ 
ment, social “ responsibility,” and so on—topics about 
which January’s debutante is decidedly happier and 
more charming if she knows nothing. 

Likewise these “ modern ” schools seem to under¬ 
rate the ever-looming peril of the Clandestine Love- 
Affair. Montescue’s does not underrate it. It still 
hides, like a grim scar on its fair fame, the memory 
of Rosabelle Cabot’s elopement. . . . With girls 
such as Montescue’s has charge of—heiresses to proud 
names and snug fortunes—the clandestine love-affair 
is more to be dreaded than smallpox. 

All incoming and outgoing mail is opened, scru¬ 
tinized and O. K.’d by Miss Montescue before delivery 
to the addressee or the post-box. No student can pass 
out of the front door, even to academic appointments, 
without a viseed passport. All excursions to the den¬ 
tist, the dressmaker or the shops, as well as all social 
excursions, are rigidly and impressively chaperoned 
by Miss Sarah Montescue or one of the teachers. 

It is Miss Sarah’s boast (uttered in a tone of well- 
simulated deprecation) that they are “ old-fashioned.” 
As Montescue’s has been for three dignified decades, 
so is it now. The wide-mouthed Post-War Spirit of 
mad license, of Freudian frankness and unseemly 
adolescent flippancies, may have changed all else: it 
has not changed Montescue’s. Rouge and cigarettes, 
beaded eyelashes and cocktails are not even whispered 
of within its decorous portals; and expulsion, no less, 
would undoubtedly be the portion of any girl who 
should undertake to initiate her mates into the mys- 


CLOTHES 


9 


teries even of an eyebrow pencil. There are no 
u flappers ” at Montescue’s, or even “ sub-debs/’ 
Montescue’s students are “ young girls ” until Senior 
Year; and then they are “ young ladies.” 

Nevertheless, inexplicable as is the bald fact, on a 
certain afternoon of a certain autumn, three of 
Montescue’s impeccable “ young girls,” totally un¬ 
chaperoned, were seated at Caillaux’s popular Back 
Bay soda-fountain, consuming three paper glasses of 
a thirty-five-cent concoction known as a “ velvet float.” 
They had elected the counter instead of one of the 
pretty little tables in the rear partly because it is easier 
(in case of emergency) to make a successful get¬ 
away from the soda-counter than from a table, but 
partly also because of a certain curly-haired soda- 
clerk. Sex, especially adolescent sex, has a way of 
overleaping even the social barrier, and there are [ways 
of carrying on a flirtation across the barrier, even with¬ 
out actually overleaping it. The curly-headed soda- 
clerk would probably give several Back Bay mothers 
a sudden crop of gray hair should he ever publish a 
volume of reminiscences. 

Now it is difficult to reconcile the fact with Montes¬ 
cue’s innocence in the matter of lip-sticks and so on, 
but the eldest of Professor Androwski’s absentee pu¬ 
pils, who was quite a habitue of Caillaux’s, had un¬ 
deniably, somewhere between Montescue’s front door 
and the soda-counter, managed to achieve a very credit¬ 
able make-up. With her darkened eyelids, her strange 
pallor, her lips crimson as blood, her oblique green 
glances and her air of speaking always in double 


10 


THE MOULD 


entendre , she was, if not a “ vamp,” at least a very 
fair imitation of one. She certainly thought she was 
“ vamping ” the curly-headed soda-fountain clerk, and 
the clerk was accepting her advances as a natural 
tribute to his manly charm. He knew she was from 
one of the private schools, and that her first name 
was Marie. As “ Marie ” he and his chum at the 
soda-counter referred to her, when discussing her. 
Marie’s invariable companion, the scrawny little 
“flapper” (shades of Montescue’s!) with her hair 
pinned up to look bobbed, was “ Hattie.” But this 
third “ jane,” who was with Marie and Hattie to-day, 
the soda-clerks had never seen before. Was she really 
with them? 

Yes, though she sat silently consuming her com¬ 
plicated beverage behind the averted shoulder of Hat¬ 
tie, while Hattie and Marie babbled companionably 
along in a sophisticated jargon obviously unintelligible 
to her, she was yet undoubtedly with them, for Marie 
had had her by the arm when they entered (much, 
indeed, like an unwilling captive) and Hattie had paid 
for all three soda-checks. Yet the strange dame was 
undeniably a peculiar companion for the super-elegant 
Marie and Hattie. 

She was a dark, gawky girl of perhaps sixteen, with 
freakish black eyebrows which met across her nose 
when she scowled (and she did scowl), thin, square 
shoulders, a flat body, and large, bare, roughened 
hands. Marie’s and Hattie’s new autumn hats, mod¬ 
ish, tiptilted and sophisticated, fairly shrieked laughter 
at the naive straw that topped their companion. Their 


CLOTHES 


11 


chic autumn suits pointed the finger of scorn (though 
the day was warm) at her cotton frock and amorphous 
“ jacket/’ The dull finish of their complexions and 
the neatly netted outlines of their hair rebuked her 
unpowdered murkiness, shiny nose, and stringy elf- 
locks escaping about her ears. 

And as the clothes and complexions, so the man¬ 
ners. Marie’s and Hattie’s were the ne plus ultra of 
ease and self-possession—almost insolent, indeed, in 
their extremity of those qualities: while their incon¬ 
gruous companion’s every glance and motion—her un¬ 
easy shiftings on the little chair, her painful flushes 
at little mishaps with the float, her furtive imitation of 
her companions’ manipulation of spoon and straw— 
convicted her of the unpardonable sin. She was 
(as Montescue’s officially put it) Gauche. Indeed, it 
might have been said (had the soda-clerks been pro¬ 
ficient in the proper language) that she was Gaucherie 
Embodied. Instead they said, stooping under the 
counter and exchanging a knowing whisper, that she 
was a Hayseed and a Hick. 

Which was true. She was a new girl at Montes¬ 
cue’s, having come out of Vermont to enter the Junior 
Class. Her name was Katherine Howard. Marie and 
Hattie had brought her along on their little lark, not 
from any hospitable impulse, but because when they 
emerged, purposely a little late, from the Misses 
Montescue’s dragoned door, on their way (presum¬ 
ably) to ensemble class at Professor Androwski’s, 
Katherine had chanced to follow on their heels. 

Marie and Hattie, after one panicky moment—but 


12 


THE MOULD 


they were determined to carry out their venture—had 
solved the situation. They could not trust the new 
girl. They had shown their amusement pretty openly 
at her queer clothes and awkward manners, and she 
would doubtless be glad enough of an opportunity to 
avenge herself. There was, however, one sure way 
to shut her lips: that was, to incriminate her equally 
with themselves. Precocious young persons, Hattie 
and Marie. They put hypocritical welcoming smiles 
on their lips, took Katherine each by an arm, and drew 
her, astonished and futilely protesting, along with 
them. 

The country girl was no match for the city-bred 
young ladies. Short of casting off their arms by phys¬ 
ical force and taking to her heels, She knew of no 
way to escape their coercive persuasions—so deter¬ 
mined were they not to be escaped. She could not 
quite fathom their motive, but sensed that it sprang 
from no personal cordiality; and once in Caillaux’s 
and their end accomplished, the young ladies assumed 
a demeanor toward her which justified her gloomiest 
forebodings. Hattie having bought her soda-check, 
she felt in honor bound to her hostesses. Yet even the 
worm will turn. Flight might be dishonorable—and 
undignified—but she was meditating it. 

Just then a fateful event intervened. Her eyes, 
focussed under her beetling scowl on the image of the 
door which was reflected in the expansive mirror which 
confronts patrons of the soda-fountain, saw that door 
swing inward; saw two young gentlemen in gay attire 
enter; saw Hattie nudge Marie excitedly; saw Marie 


CLOTHES 


13 


cast a Cool, oblique glance into the mirror, where it 
met the jocund glance of one of the young gentlemen; 
saw . . . but why tarry over details? One may 

see it oneself any day, on street-car or train, in the 
shop, in the park, on the door-step, at the movies, the 
dance, the beach: this magnetic drawing of youth to 
youth, without benefit of introductions, over or under 
or through the fence that senile convention has erected 
to keep them apart. Over four sundaes, gloomily 
served by the crestfallen curly-head, the party were 
shortly as well acquainted as if they had known each 
other from the cradle. 

Katherine Howard, the poor Gauche one, was in a 
more wretched plight than ever. Should she swallow 
her pride and humiliation and sit silently by ? Should 
she try to sneak out unobserved? The care-free blue 
orbs of one of the youths—a moon-faced child with a 
prep-school hat-band—roving aimlessly about as he 
gave comic utterance to prep-school gallantries, across 
the entirely averted shoulder of Hattie, encountered 
Katherine’s gaze, fixed upon him; and that gaze was 
so magnificent, so incomprehensible, so darkling, so 
homicidal, that he paused, his baby-mouth wide open, 
and stared transfixed. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” asked Marie, giggling. “ See 
a ghost ? ” 

Hattie glanced apprehensively at Katherine’s image 
in the glass; but Katherine’s eyes had dropped. A 
slow, furious flush mounted to her hair. She slid off 
her chair, turned, and holding her chin very high, 
moved from the self-sufficient group. 


14 


THE MOULD 


She did not go quickly enough, however, to miss 
Moon-Face's interested inquiry: “ Who’s your friend 
with the eyes ? ” or Marie’s shrill disclaimer: “ My 
lord! No friend of ours!” (“Does she look it?” 
tittered Hattie, parenthetically.) “One of the girls 
from the School—followed us in here.” 

It was too much! “Followed us in here!” She 
who had been cajoled, over-persuaded, downright 
coerced into accompanying the treacherous pair! 

It seemed to Katherine that her spine was a ramrod, 
and that her limbs moved up and down, jerkily, get¬ 
ting her away from that place by inches only, the 
while the eyes of the four amused young people behind 
her bored into her back like hot points. She imagined 
that, as the door, reached after interminable ages, 
swung to behind her, bumping a tardy heel of her as 
the crowning mortification, a loud laugh broke out. 

She stumbled blindly forward. A red mist had 
suddenly blotted out Boylston Street. She clenched 
her lean, dark hands. The nails bit into her palms. 
She vowed a vow: she would show them! 

( 2 ) 

Just before the Christmas holidays, it is the custom 
of the Misses Montescue to give an annual party, the 
feature of which, in the eyes of the School (for the 
Misses Montescue’s girls are, in spite of their superior 
heredities and environments, very much like the ordi¬ 
nary run of thirteen- to eighteen-year-old girls) that 
“ boys ” may be invited. 

Katherine, of course, fresh from the Vermont farm, 


CLOTHES 


15 


knew no boys in Boston, and so could invite none. 
Neither was she sufficiently prepossessing for any of 
the more fortunate young belles to invite one for her. 
She would have liked to hide away up-stairs, but the 
party was considered part of the school’s Social Train¬ 
ing, and she was not permitted to do so. Instead, she 
was relentlessly marshaled, by the teacher who routed 
her out of her closet, into a hideous be-frilled white 
dress which suited her as ill as any attire which 
possibly could have been devised, and compelled to 
take her part in the festivities. 

Her part! 

Alone of all Montescue’s students, she was a 
clumsy beginner at the art of dancing, and her part 
consisted in sitting in obscure corners or skulking be¬ 
hind merciful screens of the imported vegetation. 
She was miserably alone in the midst of laughing, 
chattering groups—groups light-hearted, as it was her 
right also to be, with music, pretty clothes, motion, 
and sex. There is no loneliness to compare with this. 

At the four o’clock intermission (it was, of course, 
an afternoon party) she sat neglected while other 
girls, served by their partners, consumed, with the un¬ 
spoiled appetite of youth, croquettes and peas, lobster 
salad, ices, little cakes, hot chocolate. But, hidden so 
well, she was at least spared the one unbearable hu¬ 
miliation : that of having some teacher lead some ago¬ 
nized, reluctant youth to her. . . . 

When the next dance at last began, she slipped 
surreptitiously out to the buffet, which had appro¬ 
priated a small cloakroom to the rear of the drawing- 


16 


THE MOULD 


room, and, having collected such fragments of the 
feast as she could seize on in a hurry, she scurried 
away with them to her safe retreat and appeased with 
them the pangs of an empty stomach, but not the 
pangs of an empty and passionate heart. 

The dance stopped. A boisterous clapping (for 
youth will be served—even within the shadow of 
Montescue's walls) demanded the encore. The or¬ 
chestra, to whom one tune doubtless comes to look like 
any other, indifferently took up the strain where they 
had left off, and continued it. Lads seized their part¬ 
ners again, or were seized by them, and plunged into 
the renewed whirl. 

Katherine had not secured any ice-cream on her 
foraging expedition, but she longed for some. It was 
molded in delectable great melons; one was of a deep 
chocolate rind with a flaky white heart. When she 
had snatched her croquettes, she had observed that a 
slice of it was left. She was torn between desire 
for this seductive morsel, and a craven fear of detec¬ 
tion in the act of purloining it. She glanced from be¬ 
hind the tropic clump of greenery where she was se¬ 
creted: the dancers were whirling . . . whirling 

. . . the stoic faces of the musicians as they fid¬ 

dled and thumped and blew looked as if they meant 
to continue the encore for ever and ever. She slid 
her empty plate into a pot of fern, slipped through a 
side door of the drawing-room, and, by a detour, 
reached the deserted buffet. The slice of melon was 
still there. She slid it onto a saucer, seized a spoon, 
and took a mouthful. Oh, rapture! Never before had 


CLOTHES 17 

Katherine experienced the taste of such rich, chill, 
melting sweetness. 

She heaved a long sigh, and dipped her spoon again 
—and just then, to her horror, came a sudden cessa¬ 
tion of the cornet’s positive assertion that the daisies 
wouldn’t tell, a feeble burst of applause that died at 
birth, and then an outbursting clatter of tongues. 
Katherine gathered saucer and spoon to her, and pre¬ 
pared for flight—she knew not whither. 

Too late! Staccato voices near at hand, and draw¬ 
ing nearer, stood out against the general clatter like 
figures sharply etched against a blurred background. 
Retreat was cut off! Katherine, the image of guilt, 
poised in the very act of flight, hugging to her bosom 
the damnatory saucer, stood transfixed, staring horror- 
stricken at the empty doorway. In another instant 
there appeared within its frame—crowning sting of 
fate—Marie Hunt. 

Behind Marie, close over her lace-veiled shoulder, 
loomed the round, blond, good-natured countenance 
of the cavalier of the Caillaux episode, and behind 
these two, could be discerned Bettina Mason and a 
youth unknown. These four were covertly seeking a 
retreat withdrawn from the madding crowd. Cozily 
carpeted and cushioned was the staircase, it is true 
—a romantic nook to the eye, but only to the eye, it 
being most efficiently chaperoned by Miss Sarah 
Montescue. The buffet alone was not under surveil¬ 
lance; and, seeing Katherine, an innocent interloper, 
already in possession, Miss Hunt scowled, and came 
to an involuntary stop. 


IS 


TEE MOULD 


Katherine did not move. This simple solution of 
the situation did not occur to her. She stood at bay, 
staring ferociously at the four in the doorway. 

It was the Caillaux young man who broke the ten¬ 
sion. 

“ Hello! ” he whispered cheerfully. “ The Dame 
with the Eyes—at it again! Give me a knock-down, 
Marie! ” 

Marie hesitated, crimsoned, then performed the in¬ 
troduction with a very bad grace: “ Mr. Daggett— 
Miss Howard.” 

She choked over the “ Howard,” and Bettina Ma¬ 
son, who had a sense of humor, giggled. 

Katherine, aware how awkward was the jerk of her 
head and how inadequate the mutter of her dry lips, 
took the giggle to herself, and was in a rage at her¬ 
self, at Fate, at Marie, even at the quite innocent Mr. 
Daggett. 

The latter, indeed, was more than innocent: he rose 
gallantly, yes, downright chivalrously, to the occa¬ 
sion. 

“ May I see your card, Miss Howard ? ” he inquired, 
with a deep bend. 

Her card! It came to Katherine’s lips to explain 
that she hadn’t any card—couldn’t dance—she tried 
to think of some excuse to make instead of the con¬ 
fession—she saw Mr. Daggett waiting, making her 
ridiculous—she saw Marie’s lip curling—and then, 
suddenly, to her horror, she heard herself blurt out, 
loudly and violently, “ No! ” 

She had intended to add something explanatory, but 


5 


CLOTHES 19 

the sound of her own voice startled it out of her. 
She fled. 

There was a second’s blank silence; then a peal of 
laughter from Bettina, and Marie exclaimed shrilly, 
“Well, I neverl Can you beat it?” 

“ Some pippin! ” snickered Mr. Huntington Clarke, 
Bettina’s escort. “ Just crazy to know you better, 
ain’t she, Baldie?” 

“ Baldie ” had run his hands deep into his pockets, 
and was looking rather dashed. He rallied, however. 
“ Gosh, she don’t know what a nice little fellow I am, 
hev what ? ” 

J 

“ Perhaps you’d like a chance to show her ? ” in¬ 
quired Marie, rather acidly. 

“ Perhaps I would,” agreed Baldie, serenely. 

Bettina giggled. 

Marie shot a look of blighting scorn at her. “ Oh, 
don’t mind me! ” she remarked fiercely to Baldie. 

Bettina giggled again. Marie had made herself 
rather odious around school by her bragging of her 
conquest of the impressionable Mr. Daggett, who was 
none other than the only son of Ames Daggett, the 
shoe-man, and the possessor of a little vermilion road¬ 
ster, a canoe on the Charles, a motor-boat at Hull, a 
super-princely allowance, and a King of good fellows 
at the Volkstone School, which he attended more or 
less irregularly. 

Marie flushed. “ Come, Baldie,” she cried bitingly, 
“ let’s go where it isn’t so noisy! ” 

And, seizing him by the arm, she pushed past their 
former companions without a look, without an adieu. 


20 


THE MOULD 


(3) 

It was Bettina who told the story that night in the 
corridor, after the “ lights-out" bell, to a group from 
which Marie was conspicuously absent. Bettina began 
in a discreet whisper; but as the tale grew, under the 
delicate malice of her manipulation, the joy of the 
creator intoxicated her. Her whisper took on a thin 
body, shrilled excitedly, traversed the corridor, and 
pierced Katherine’s open transom. 

According to Bettina, Baldie had been very much 
smitten with Katherine, and Marie had been corre¬ 
spondingly enraged. . . . 

Late that night, after the group in the corridor had 
dispersed, Katherine snapped on her light. She was 
alone in her room, for her roommate, Angela Gray¬ 
son, had been permitted to go home over the week¬ 
end on account of the arrival from Italy of her brother 
Paul. 

Under the light hung a fair-sized mirror, in which, 
by tilting it, one could see oneself from topknot to 
knees. 

Katherine tilted it, and peered hopefully, almost ex¬ 
citedly, into its depths. ... But no. Above a 
flat, harsh-white, beruffled figure, the same swarthy, 
impossible face peered back at her, the eager flame 
in its black eyes dying slowly, resentfully, out. With 
a swift twist of thumb and finger at the electric switch, 
she plunged the room into darkness. In the dark, as 
if darkness could blot out the image, she went to bed. 

In bed, she thought of everything—even the things 
farthest back. What would these scornful, pattern 


CLOTHES 


21 


girls say if they knew she was the daughter of Richard 
M. Howard—Richard M. Howard who could buy and 
sell most of their fathers! What would they say if 
they knew that she had been born on Commonwealth 
Avenue? They had never tried to find out anything 
about her—who she was, or anything. Just because 
she was queer-looking and had been brought in from 
the country by a queer-looking, countrified old woman, 
her grandmother, the girls had simply let her alone. 
They had done worse than that! They had eyed her 
askance, with the unconscious cruelty of adolescence, 
and tittered at her blunders. 

In bed, in the dark, she reddened, and clenched her 
fists. She would show them! Not for nothing was 
she the daughter of Dickie Howard, who had started 
his financial career as a ragged newsboy, borrowed the 
money for his first speculation from a colored barber, 
and achieved, symbol of his wealth, that vast marble 
palace on the Fenway! Not for nothing was she the 
daughter of Belle Ansella Howard, that extraordinary 
young woman from Vermont, who, a chambermaid at 
the time she had married Dickie and his millions, had 
generaled her way, against all the stupendous odds, 
into the very innermost shrine of Boston society. The 
cataclysm of divorce and suicide which had ended her 
amazing career had banished Katherine, then a child 
of seven, to the country and her grandmother’s care 
(Dickie Howard’s palace, after his wife left it, not 
being a suitable place in which to bring up a child) ; 
and the country had put its thumb-mark on Katherine, 
but had not destroyed her heritage. And her heritage 


22 THE MOULD 

was the will and the power to achieve! She would 
show them! 

(4) 

It was Angela who pointed out the way. 

One evening as Katherine was changing from an 
unbecoming chocolate-brown school-dress made by 
Miss Brixton of Millersville, to a still less becoming 
baby-blue dinner-frock with a sash, bought ready¬ 
made in Boston by her grandmother and her, after 
they found she would need it, she remarked vigorously 
to Angela, “ I hate clothes. I wish people went 
naked/’ 

Angela was slipping a girlish little creation of 
crepe de chine, as naive and as pink and sweet and 
perfect as a peach-blossom, over her head, and she 
paused to disentangle a crystal bead from her hair 
before replying, sensibly, “ You wouldn’t say that if 
you had some pretty clothes/’ 

The psychological soundness of this remark struck 
Katherine at once. She gazed reflectively at Angela. 

“ Most people’s looks are all a matter of clothes,” 
continued Angela, twisting herself before the mirror 
on the wall under the electric bulb, in the difficult en¬ 
deavor to see her fair hair, which, fluffed softly and 
girlishly out from under a heavy coronal braid, made 
a bright halo about her face. She looked, for the mo¬ 
ment, like a stained glass angel in a church-window. 

Katherine saw this, and, in the mirror beyond, she 
saw the fair, pretty nape of Angela’s neck, just where 
the big bow of black taffeta ribbon was pinned across 
the roots of the coronal braid. And beside this grace- 


CLOTHES 


23 


ful, blond image she caught a glimpse, in the back¬ 
ground, of her own swarthiness, with those black 
brows and gloomy black eyes. 

Angela seemed to divine her thought. “ It’s all in 
dressing to your type,” said the wise girl. She tucked 
to place the strand of the halo which the hook had 
dragged out. “ Now you, for instance, are an unusual 
type, and you need very careful dressing. I would 
love to have a free hand to see what I could do with 
you.” 

“ Do you mean you would be willing to help me 
buy myself some proper clothes ? ” asked Katherine, 
without indirection. 

Angela had not meant anything in particular, but 
the idea at once appealed to her. She loved to work 
constructively on her mates. And toward Katherine, 
so raw, so unformed, she suddenly felt the yearning 
of the potter to his clay. 

(5) 

Katherine and Mr. Archibald Daggett, thanks to 
Marie’s care, did not meet again for several months; 
and meanwhile Montescue’s was shaping Katherine 
up rapidly. She was learning to dress, to dance, to 
swim, to skate, to play tennis, to talk, and to calculate 
her effects. 

Montescue’s used a large back court, surrounded 
by a high wall, for their Senior Class-Day exercises. 
Japanese lanterns, strung across it, ready for the even¬ 
ing lighting, bobbed festively, and a little stage had 
been erected to be used for the Junior-Senior play. 


24 


THE MOULD 


Marie had not invited Baldie to the play, because 
Katherine was to be Orlando, in Lincoln-green, the 
role which Marie (rather prematurely) had told 
Baldie she herself was to have. Besides, Marie had 
never forgotten the Christmas dance episode, and she 
did not wish to have the improved Katherine Howard 
thrust thus forcibly on Baldie’s notice. 

Consequently when Mr. Daggett did arrive, for the 
class-reception which followed the play, not a thought 
was in his head of the Miss Katherine Howard whose 
eyes had once made such a fiery impression upon his 
susceptible soul. 

It was morning, and Baldie was got up like the 
lilies of the field, in a natty green coat, white flannel 
trousers with cuffs, green silk hose and gleaming red 
shoes, a pale green silk shirt, a flowered scarf, and a 
white hat with a Volkstone band of old rose and silver 
gray. 

His friend Huntington Clarke, who had entered 
Volkstone’s the same year as Baldie, but, like most of 
the rest of the class, had long since passed on without 
him and was now a freshman at Harvard, met him, 
clad in similar regalia, at the tall iron gate, for once 
unlocked, but guarded by a severe young woman who 
demanded credentials of all who sought to enter. 

“ What ho! ” cried Baldie, admiringly, as he eyed 
his friend. 

They linked arms, an odd couple: Tony Clarke with 
his lean frame, thin face, and sharp eyes; Baldie with 
his stocky bulk, round, good-natured visage, and mild 
blue orbs. 


CLOTHES 


25 


“ What price gentlemen’s haber-” began the lat¬ 

ter; but the piquant inquiry was never completed, for 
at this moment Baldie caught sight of a girl standing 
alone, but not lonesomely, at the end of the paved 
path, looking at the gay, lantern-decked scene in the 
court beyond. 

This girl, against the old brick wall and evergreen 
hedge, with the gay-colored paper globes dancing over¬ 
head, was a picture. In the wrong clothes, she might 
have looked flat and gawky; in the dress she was wear¬ 
ing—a soft, silky thing of wide stripes of vivid rose and 
white—with white buckskin pumps that arched her 
insteps and called attention to her slim ankles, she was 
just lithe and boyish. That effect was carried farther, 
too, by the way she had thrust her hands into the 
pockets of the fluttery skirt. 

Baldie saw her in profile. She had the fine open 
shoulders and deep chest of the tennis-player; her 
skin was dark and healthy as if with the tan of sum¬ 
mer sun and salt wind; her black hair, soft and dry, 
had not been tortured into waves, but had been left 
beautifully straight. It was done the way Nazimova 
wore hers in “ Hedda Gabler,” and it showed the fine 
shape of the girl’s head. The lift of her firm chin 
compelled attention to her features. She had the 
straight brow, the fine nose and keen nostrils of the 
Arab; but her lips were not so full. She had queer 
black brows which, when she concentrated her gaze, 
as now, drew together across the bridge of her nose. 

Baldie gripped his friend’s arm. They stopped 
short. 



26 


THE MOULD 


“ See that dame ? ” inquired Baldie, in awe-struck 
tones, indicating the motionless girl. “ Oh, boy! Lead 
me to her 1 ” 

Huntington glanced carelessly at the young lady. 
She did not appeal to his taste at all. 

“ And have Marie sink her claws in me ? ” he re¬ 
torted, languidly. “Thanks! Nothing doing! ” 

Baldie was still gazing. “ Tony,” he said lyrically. 
“ that’s my girl! ” 

Tony lifted skeptical eyebrows. Though only nine¬ 
teen, he knew the world. 

At this moment, the rose-and-white-striped girl 
moved. She turned and looked back, down the path 
toward the gate. Her gaze slid smoothly, blankly 
across Tony Clarke, as if he had not been. On Baldie, 
it flickered a moment, just a moment. The queer 
black brows seemed to draw together, just for an 
instant. Then the black-eyed gaze, serene, imper¬ 
sonal, passed on to the gate. A credit to Montes- 
cue’s, this girl. Nine months only had Montescue’s 
had her, and already she was shaping up to the 
pattern. 

Baldie’s jaw, meanwhile, had dropped. By nothing 
else about her could he have guessed her identity; but 
by the eyes he knew her. Bold-hearted, in the face of 
the probable snub, Baldie stepped up and doffed his 
beautiful hat. He grinned appealingly. 

As the black eyes turned a glance of cool, very cool, 
inquiry upon him, the mild blue eyes pleaded for re¬ 
membrance—and at the same time bade her to pretend 
she did not remember him—if she dared! 


CLOTHES 


27 


“ How do you do, Miss Howard! ” crowed Baldie. 

A slight red tinged Katherine’s dark skin. She hesi¬ 
tated. Then she thought of Marie. She held out a 
hand, in the becoming boyish manner. 

“ How do you do! ” 

Baldie grasped the hand heartily. 

“ Bet you don’t remember me ! ” 

“ * Bet ’ I do ! ” She mocked him. 

“ Bet a five-pound box of chocolates you can’t say 
my name ! ” A crafty youth, Baldie ! 

“To a pair of gloves. I take you—Mr. Archibald 
Daggett! ” 

Baldie blushed as red as a red, red rose. 

“ Say, that’s great! ” he said. . . . 

Then he remembered Huntington Clarke, to intro¬ 
duce him, and turned around. But Tony had diplo¬ 
matically vanished. 

So Katherine “ showed them.” In her rose-and- 
white frock, hands in her pockets except when Miss 
Montescue or Miss Sal were looking, Mr. Archibald 
Daggett, resplendent in all his glory of cuffed trousers 
and gleaming shoes and white hat and flowered tie, 
beside her, Katherine made the tour of the yard; and 
all the School saw her; and all the School knew that 
Marie’s day, with Baldie, was done. 


CHAPTER II 


A HEDDA CABLES. COIFFURE 

(l) 

By May of the following year, Montescue’s pointed 
to Miss Katherine Howard (neatly contrasting her 
with the uncouth lass who had come to them out of 
Vermont) as an Achievement. They talked, in faculty 
meeting, of the “ three periods ” in Miss Howard’s 
personal development. These were, pedagogically 
expressed, (i) the gauche period, ( 2 ) the unruly pe¬ 
riod, ( 3 ) the period of voluntary yielding to forma¬ 
tive agencies, and of being brought into proper shape. 

Of these, the unruly period had been the most 
strenuous for Montescue’s. Katherine, set free from 
the bonds of gaucherie, had revealed herself as a 
clumsy hoyden or tomboy, too full of life, a hilarious 
young dynamo running wild in their prim midst. 

Montescue’s, however, had had experience with 
“ the type.” Sagaciously, instead of trying to break 
her, they kneaded her. They insinuated ideas to the 
effect that pranks—like sliding down the rope fire- 
escape, dressing up dummies to scare the Freshmen, 
arranging bags of flour to drop on the heads of un¬ 
suspecting virtuous proctors, and setting off the fire- 
alarm at midnight—were very childish and silly. At 
seventeen it is intolerable to be considered childish. 

28 


A HEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 29 

So Katherine, thus justifying the Montescue policy, 
had voluntarily left childish things and entered pe¬ 
riod (3). 

By spring of her second and final year at Montes¬ 
cue’s, she was a girl whom anyone would turn to look 
twice at. She no longer needed advice from Angela 
in “ dressing her type.” The pupil had gone beyond 
the teacher. It was not all in the clothes, either. She 
had an air of never seeing the hoi-poloi that was posi¬ 
tively fascinating. Street-car conductors and taxi- 
drivers simply did not exist; porters, shop-girls and 
waitresses were a sort of automatic device: you placed 
a coin and pressed a directing button, so to speak. 
Even her associates sometimes felt themselves effaced 
from the picture. And as the human tendency is to 
kiss the foot that spurns us, the new Katherine How¬ 
ard (Dickie Howard’s heiress) was extremely popular, 
especially with the younger girls. There was a sort 
of cult of Katherine Howard, in the School: an Imi¬ 
tation of Katherine Howard. 

Montescue’s, however, like most quick-and-sure- 
process agencies, had not done a very thorough job. 
Two years, despite the apparent contradiction by visi¬ 
ble results, is really too short a time to begin at the 
inside of a human being and work clear out to the 
surface. If visible results are wanted, it is necessary 
to begin, as Montescue’s did, on the outside and work 
in—as far as time permits. 

Time had not permitted them to get very far in. 
The dynamo had not been hitched up to anything: it 
was still running wild; only that instead of sliding 


30 


THE MOULD 


down fire-ropes and getting caught, Katherine was 
now cutting “ ensemble ” and joy-riding in Baldie Dag¬ 
gett's little roadster—and not getting caught. She 
knew how to enter a room, how to greet a visiting 
parent, how to make conversation, how to eat aspara¬ 
gus, strawberries and spaghetti—in short she pos¬ 
sessed a pattern outfit of deportment: but on informal 
occasions she was, more often than not, rude, insolent, 
and unmannerly. She had successfully maintained a 
passing average in History, Mathematics, Literature, 
Bible and the others; but the little brood of the usual 
heresies hatching out in her adolescent brain were un¬ 
scotched. She boasted herself a scornful Atheist, a 
cynical disbeliever in love and marriage, a creature 
who had triumphantly repudiated the claims of all 
moral and social codes, a votary of Self and the Grand 
Good Time. Not that she had ever done anything, of 
course; her repudiations were all purely intel¬ 
lectual. . . . 


( 2 ) 

The air was buzzing with everybody’s plans for 
“ after Commencement.” Angela was to have a quiet 
home coming-out in the fall, at a simple tea to which 
her mother would ask her own friends and a few of 
Angela’s. Marie, about January, had the Somerdome 
Plaza green ballroom and suite engaged for a gorgeous 
debut with some five thousand invitations to be issued 
to people (many of whom would be unable to place 
her) and hired automobiles to meet the trains from 
New York, Washington and points south on which 


A EEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 31 

should be expected to arrive the personages who should 
save the Boston affair from “ provincialism.” 

Hattie’s family, of course, were aiming to strain 
themselves to give Hattie a social start as near like 
Marie’s as they could manage; then the two girls, 
Hattie as a sort of unofficial companion, were going 
“ across ” with Marie’s mother and an aunt. Bettina 
had already, as she expressed it, with her giggle, 
“ leaked out,” so there was no use in making a pre¬ 
tence at a formal debut; but it would be her first real 
“ season,” just the same, and gold slippers and French 
posies on tulle flounces figured prominently in her 
conversation, and her feet were always twinkling down 
the dull corridors in the latest dance-steps. 

Maizie Leonard, who was much younger than the 
other girls of the class and obliged to mark time so¬ 
cially for two years before she could come out, was 
being dispatched to a French Convent—from which 
she confidently expected to elope by a rope-ladder and 
marry a handsome young Viscount or somebody 
equally romantic and eligible. Bess Freelyn was off 
for college in September, and was collecting pennants 
and sofa-pillows in thrilled preparation. Even Estelle 
Houghton, a charity-pupil at Montescue’s, had man¬ 
aged to get secretly married to a millionaire Freshman 
at Harvard and thus to throw a glamor of romance 
about her otherwise plain and uninteresting self. 

But Katherine! 

Her schooling was paid for by special dispensation; 
but, her schooling being finished, she was, so far as 
she knew, to revert automatically to Millersville, Ver- 


32 


THE MOULD 


mont, and the farm. She did not even know whether 
her allowance—which had begun with her matricula¬ 
tion at Montescue’s—would cease or not when she 
severed her connection with that institution. 

If there were anything she could do to support her¬ 
self and stay in the city! But there was nothing. 
Montescue’s was not preoccupied with relating to life 
the class of girls who must expect to earn a living. 
There was not one skilled paid occupation for which 
Katherine was qualified. Millersville loomed up: in¬ 
evitable ! 

“ Why so silent, beloved ? ” Bettina asked, one even¬ 
ing, during a conclave in which all the Seniors except 
Katherine had been talking rosily, two or three at a 
time. 

After the Seniors had dispersed, all but Bettina, 
whom a secret curiosity held, Katherine told Bettina 
why she had been silent. She laid open to Bettina 
the nightmare situation in which she found herself: a 
child of the metropolis (she meant, of course, Bos¬ 
ton) exiled and then called back, and now- She 

groaned. She sketched, impressionistically, for Bet¬ 
tina, Millersville and the Farm. 

“ Why,” suggested Bettina, practically, “ don’t you 
write to your father ? ” 

“ My father ! ” echoed Katherine, startled. 

So perfect all these years had been the secretarial 
insulation between her father and herself, that the 
idea of its being even possible to communicate di¬ 
rectly with him had never till now entered her head. 

“ Oh, I—I couldn’t! ” she gasped; but even as she 



A HEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 33 


spoke, she knew in the depths of her heart that she 
could—and would. A vision flashed across her mind: 
the vast, white palace on the Fenway—vistas of high- 
ceiled, ornate rooms—of silent-footed, respectful-man¬ 
nered servants Suppose —suppose -/ 

“ I’ll do it! ” she said. 

So, in midnight conclave, behind a transom muffled 
with a woollen skirt, the two friends drafted a mas¬ 
terpiece of the epistolary art; copied it; addressed it 
as “ Personal ” with a heavy flourish; stamped it, 
sealed it; and, at the first opportunity, consigned it 
surreptitiously to the care of the United States Gov¬ 
ernment. The Rubicon was crossed. 

(3) 

The fateful missive, after passing through the hands 
of the requisite number of government employees, 
reached Richard Howard, who was, at the moment, 
seated at a mahogany desk in a sumptuous private 
office on State Street, tete-a-tete with his private sec¬ 
retary, with whom he was taking up his Monday 
morning’s mail. 

The confidential secretary, whose business it was to 
distinguish between personal and personal, handed him 
Katherine’s letter with a rather queer expression of 
countenance. 

Dickie glanced at the heavy, expensive note-paper, 
sniffed the very faint hint of fragrance (much fainter 
than Dickie was accustomed to in his communications 
from ladies), noted the bold and carefully sophisticated 
unfamiliar superscription, slid the note out of the 




34 


THE MOULD 


opened envelope and read: “My dear Father: You 
will doubtless be very much surprised to receive this 
letter-” 

Dickie was very much surprised. The possibility 
of any direct communication between him and his 
former wife’s daughter (that was the way he usually 
thought of Katherine when he thought of her at all, 
rather forgetting his own share in her) had always 
been as far from Dickie’s imagination as from Kath¬ 
erine’s. Yet here he was, reading a letter from her! 

Not that there was anything startling about the 
letter, which merely stated that the writer was about 
to complete her course at the Misses Montescue’s 
School; that she was more grateful than words could 
express for her father’s generosity in sending her 
there and in providing her with such a generous al¬ 
lowance; that she hoped she had turned out a credit 
to him (this was a crafty touch of Bettina’s) ; that 
she hoped he would come to her Commencement, as 
all the girls were to have parents there and she would 
like to have a father (the pathos was Bettina’s, too). 

After prolonged deliberation, the collaborators had 
decided not to broach the topic of the Farm in this 
preliminary epistle. It was signed: “ Your affectionate 
daughter” (“You’re willing to be affectionate, if he 
comes across, aren’t you ? ” Bettina had giggled, in 
reply to Katherine’s protest against this sentimental¬ 
ity). 

Dickie whistled—then scowled—then smiled. 

He tossed the note back to his secretary. 

“ Say I’m sorry. Can’t come to the party. Say I 



A HEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 35 

shall be in New York. Get her a present and have it 
sent.” 

The secretary, in the cabalistic characters that sec¬ 
retaries employ, made this memorandum on the back 
of the missive freighted, alas, with such glowing young 
hopes. 

Having considered the rest of his morning’s mail, 
Dickie turned to the reports of the foreign markets; 
but before long he realized that he was not getting his 
usual degree of concentration. The meaning of cer¬ 
tain figures escaped him. He caught himself re¬ 
reading them mechanically. 

“ What the blinkety-blank is the matter with me ? ” 
demanded Dickie, at last, stirring up his papers with 
an irritated but aimless hand. 

As if only awaiting this question, there arose before 
his mind’s eye a vision of Belle Ansella, as he had 
not thought of her for years. 

Belle Ansella! 

He had never been happy with her. “ My one mis¬ 
take ”—that was how he had once, after the divorce, 
though before the suicide, jocosely referred to her. 

Still, at this moment, the dim sweetness of her form, 
her remembered reticences, the level gaze of her eyes 
at him out of the twilight past, moved him unac¬ 
countably. He recollected, too, a straight, well-set-up 
little person of whom he used to be very proud in 
those days—his daughter. 

And now his daughter, for fifteen years a mere 
name, at best a vague memory, a light responsibility 
to be attended to through his employees, had suddenly 


3G 


THE MOULD 


become flesh and blood and personality—and written 
him a letter—inviting him to her Commencement! 

“ Grover! ” he said to his secretary. 

“ Yes, sir,” murmured the secretary, whipping out 
his pencil and note-book. 

“ That letter from my daughter-” 

“ Yes, sir? ” 

“ Say I can’t come to Commencement, but I’ll call 
and see her next Wednesday at four. Put it on my 
calendar.” 


(4) 

Dickie’s secretary’s letter threw Bettina, when she 
received the news, into a high state of anticipation. 

“ He’s coming to look you over, you see,” she told 
Katherine. “ He hasn’t compromised himself. Then 
if he likes you—all right. If he doesn’t like you, this 
can be the end. He doesn’t intend, as they say, to 
buy a pig in a poke.” 

Bettina meditated. “ I wonder how we would bet¬ 
ter get you up ? ” she mused. 

By noon of Wednesday, Katherine was in a feverish 
state of excitement. Everything hinged on the next 
few hours! Everything hinged on how she should 
carry through the interview! The great white palace 
—or the farm: it was up to her. She had her chance. 
If she failed—her mind shrank from a contemplation 
of the dull gray future. 

She changed her dress three times; and she and 
Bettina, who was officiating, nearly had a brainstorm 
trying to decide between an ingenue coiffure (hair 



A REDD A GABLER COIFFURE 37 


softly waved, parted on one side, and gathered at the 
nape of the neck by a girlish ribbon) or the more 
sophisticated and also more becoming Hedda Gabler 
arrangement. Katherine remembered her father 
vaguely as a big, bulky, jovial man with a red face— 
she was familiar with his features from a newspaper 
picture of him which she possessed. It seemed pos¬ 
sible that the ingenue might make the stronger appeal 
to a big, red-faced jovial sinner; but on the other 
hand, Hedda was more likely to make him realize that 
his daughter was grown up, ready and capable of 
creditably taking her place in his home—as the mis¬ 
tress of it. 

The whole School realized the importance of the 
occasion: Katherine Howard’s unknown multi-million¬ 
aire father was coming to see her! Katherine might 
be installed, after June, in that splendid marble palace 
on Commonwealth Avenue—as mistress! What dig¬ 
nity ! What romance! 

Three little Freshmen proudly performed the menial 
duties of her toilet; a fluttering ring of satellites helped 
Bettina decide, finally, on the Hedda coiffure; the 
wealthy Miss Quimby of Wollaston, who had more 
money than other assets, and more social aspirations 
than money, insisted on loaning her a diamond cres¬ 
cent brooch; a chambermaid, quivering with excite¬ 
ment, brought up the expected card (unusual for¬ 
mality) on silver. Even Montie, after having bid the 
prodigal father the rather chilly welcome which she 
felt was appropriate from the female guardian of the 
virtue of thirty young girls to a notorious transgressor, 


38 


THE MOULD 


shut herself up with Sal in their private sitting-room 
and condescended to a ripple of excitement. 

Thus it was that when Katherine came down, the 
drawing-room was occupied by but a single figure: 
that of a small, pursy quiet little man, very gray. 

Where was her father—the big, bulky, jovial sinner? 
This was not—could not be—yet, of course, as he 
rose and came toward her, she knew it was. She rec¬ 
ognized his features—from the newspaper cut. 

Bettina had coached Katherine very thoroughly on 
the interview, but this unexpected discrepancy between 

4 

the father she had expected to meet and the one who 
now addressed her, completely knocked her opening 
speech out of her head. 

In a flurry, she held out her hand. 

There was a dead silence for one terrible moment. 

Dickie had been unconsciously visualizing what he 
would have called a “ flapper/’ and when this tall 
young lady, half a head taller than himself, and full 
of dignity, advanced upon him, he was as much taken 
aback as Katherine herself. In the business world 
and in the social underworld, Dickie was noted for 
the aplomb with which he met untoward situations; 
in good society, however, he had rather lost his self- 
confidence. 

Then, too, Katherine, with her direct, unconsciously 
severe gaze, her erect carriage and appearance of ex¬ 
treme self-possession, reminded him forcibly of Belle 
Ansella. Just so had Belle Ansella looked, the day 
she found him kissing the parlor-maid in the coat- 
closet. 


A HEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 39 

And, finally, Dickie had, more or less unconsciously, 
meditated a fatherly kiss and a jocular greeting— 
which were obviously rendered impossible by his 
daughter’s dignity, severity, superior stature and 
Hedda Gabler coiffure. Not to mention her out¬ 
stretched hand. 

Dickie grasped the hand hastily, and dropped it as 
hastily. 

“ Well-” he began. Then, realizing that he must 

finish his sentence, he cleared his throat and added: 
“ You’re my daughter.” 

Here was Katherine’s chance to control the situa¬ 
tion. She had but to retort merrily, “ So it seems! 
How do you like me ? ” and all were well. 

But she had been, alas, too thoroughly coached. It 
made her self-conscious. She was oppressed, too, by 
the necessity of living up to the Hedda Gabler coiffure 
and saying something cleverly sophisticated. Alas, the 
Pride of Montescue’s— stuttered! 

“ Yes, I—I am.” Then she blushed furiously. 

Dickie gazed at her, rather oppressed. “ You’re 
some big girl! ” 

Katherine opened her mouth—and closed it. Pre¬ 
cisely, she commented to herself, like a fish.—The re¬ 
flection did not help to put her at her ease. 

In deep silence, Dickie sat down. Katherine fol¬ 
lowed suit—in silence. They cast about for something 
to say; and the longer the silence lasted, the harder 
it was to break. 

Dickie it was who actually took the plunge. 



40 THE MOULD 

“ Well,” he said, boldly, “ you’re almost through 
school.” 

Here was a splendid opening! Bettina had prophe¬ 
sied it, and had rehearsed Katherine in the exactly 
right reply. Katherine therefore stuttered again: 
“ Yes, I—am. Almost through.” And tears of morti¬ 
fication welled up to her eyes. 

“ Like it here ? ” 

" Remember! You must put it across—or buy your 
ticket to Millersville! ” Bettina’s parting admonition, 
hissed into Katherine’s ear at the head of the stairs, 
echoed now through her brain. She gulped—recov¬ 
ered herself—heard herself answering: “Yes, very 
much—only it’s all going to be over so soon-” 

Thus, having missed Opportunity’s forelock, she 
strove to get a fingerhold on his receding bald-spot. 
Effort proverbially futile! The unconscious Dickie, 
persistently interested in studies, classes, grades and 
teachers, constantly foiled her repeated efforts to bring 
the conversation gracefully around to the point from 
which she could launch out on the subject of the 
Dreadful Farm. The trouble with conversational 
finesse, as with these printed manuals of polite con¬ 
versation, is that the other person must know the 
proper responses or the whole thing goes to pot. 

In vain did Katherine, the Pride of Montescue’s, 
try to lead the conversation back to the point at which 
it had started: Dickie’s heavy interest in things 
academic prevailed. Straight down the middle of 
a conversational lane that had no turning, he 
plodded. . . . 



A EEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 41 


By and by he flashed out his watch and announced 
that it was time to be going. And the Farm had not 
been mentioned! 

Then Katherine underwent a sudden revulsion of 
feeling. How poor a creature was this, to hold her 
fate in his hands! She had unconsciously cherished 
an imaginary portrait of her father posed as the stern- 
browed, grim-jawed, lean-flanked romantic Ruthless 
Villain, taking his pleasures remorselessly and egotis¬ 
tically; the marks of them showing in deep lines 
graven from nostrils to the corners of his mouth, and 
in graying patches over his ears. Such a father, Kath¬ 
erine, with a really delightful freedom from conven¬ 
tional moral prejudices, could quite have admired. 
But this paunchy little victim of his own wine-suppers, 
this good-natured dupe of little gold-diggers—faugh! 
. . . That was the way Katherine felt about it. 

Dickie rose. He was going. Let him go! To stoop 
to ask anything of him was impossible. 

Then, just as he was at the very door, she again 
remembered Bettina’s parting and highly amused in¬ 
junction : " Don't forget! It's success—or the farm! ” 

“ Father! ” she stammered, at his back. 

He turned questioningly. 

No hesitation now! Her words rushed forth in a 
torrent. “ I don't want to go back to the farm! I 
can’t-” 

She stopped suddenly, chilled by Dickie’s expres¬ 
sion. The thought flitted across her mind that per¬ 
haps Dickie was not so often the dupe of the little gold- 
diggers as she had thought. She also perceived, as if 



42 


THE MOULD 


her eyes had just opened, that though the lips of the 
face which now silently confronted her might be self- 
indulgent to the point of weakness, the chin thrust 
forward obstinately and the jowls had a bulldog set. 
If the Dickie who had been sitting in the Misses 
Montescue’s reception-room exchanging conversa¬ 
tional inanities with his daughter was the social 
pariah, the Dickie who now scrutinized her was the 
Dickie who had achieved, out of a penniless boyhood, 
a marble palace on Commonwealth Avenue. 

She cringed as this Dickie’s eyes, no longer vacuous, 
focussed on some page within her brain, reading it. 
Yet, in the midst of her shame and confusion, she 
felt a thrill of pride. This was her father! Her soul 
acclaimed him. 

“ Oh,” said Dickie, quizzically, after a few seconds, 
“ so that was it! ” 

He turned and walked out. 

Dickie was hard hit. 

He would by no means have admitted it, but the 
social outcast had been touched by the wish of his 
little girl—his innocent little girl—to see him; to see 
her father. Unconsciously he had sentimentalized 
about it. He was, after all, a lonely little man. . . . 

He had rather fancied the picture of himself sitting 
decorously in a boarding-school parlor discussing les¬ 
sons and grades with his daughter, precisely like any 
other father of a boarding-school daughter! He felt 
a great sentimental nausea at his present mode of life; 
a longing for something simpler and cleaner. He hov¬ 
ered on the verge of a mad resolve to cut out the 


A HEDDA GABLER COIFFURE 43 


whole business of his nonsense, to clean out his house, 
and take his little girl home with him to keep him 
straight the rest of his days. 

As he paused in the drawing-room door, he was 
flirting with this idea. And just then, behind him, 
Katherine had blurted out the disingenuous secret of 
her motive in seeking her dear father’s acquaintance— 
for all the world like—a gold-digger. 

(5) 

Perhaps he was too hard on her. It must only be 
pleaded, in extenuation, that Katherine had touched a 
sensitive spot in her father’s otherwise fairly well 
calloused exterior. Somebody was always trying to 
“ do ” Dickie. His appearance of good-natured 
weakness was so tempting. Nobody, it seemed, ever 
approached him except with some ulterior motive that, 
more or less directly, had his pocketbook as its objec¬ 
tive. And now his daughter, his little girl, had done 
it. 

Of course, too, he had no background for Kather¬ 
ine’s action. It loomed up, bald, unlovely, fatally fa¬ 
miliar in its outlines, quite unsoftened by any insight 
into the real travail of young soul which had brought 
it forth. 

As for Katherine, she ran up-stairs, brushed aside 
the eagerly curious waiting cohorts of the faithful, 
rushed into her room, banged the door, locked it, and, 
flinging herself upon her bed, wept long and bitterly. 

She was ashamed: that was the chief ingredient 
of her anguish. She had conceitedly despised her fa- 


44 THE MOULD 

ther, and then he had suddenly showed her how great 
was her mistake. 

Then she was, of course, terribly disappointed. She 
had been fostering fair hopes—aided and abetted by 
her flattering satellites—in which the white Fenway 
palace had stood like a goal of dreams. And now all 
these hopes were laid low, and the white palace, like 
a castle in Spain, had vanished. 

And finally, there was, curiously enough for such a 
self-sufficient young Epicurean, underneath all the 
rest, a queer, lonely ache. Almost in one and the 
same moment, that moment when the real Dickie had 
faced her and looked into her cowering soul, she had 
gained—and lost—a father. 

Bettina analyzed the situation with fair accuracy. 

“ It was the Hedda Gabler coiffure/’ she sighed. 
“ We should have got you up in pigtails and a 
bow. . . .” 


CHAPTER III 


A WILL AND THE WAY 

(l) 

The sooty two-coach “ local ” shrieked warning of 
its approach, rattled across a country roadway, and hic¬ 
coughed itself to a standstill beside a plank platform 
and a small ginger-colored shed. 

A conductor in shirt-sleeves popped his head in at 
the door of the coach in which the single passenger 
was seated, and announced: “ Mi’rsville! Mi’rsville! ” 

As if Katherine, morosely gazing out through a 
dirty window-pane, did not recognize the place! It 
had not changed ! There was the rusty baggage-truck, 
setting in exactly the same spot as when she had last 
seen it, two years ago. There was the same loose plank 
in the platform on which the occasional stranger had 
stubbed his toe for the last five years or more. There 
was the immodestly conspicuous outhouse to which 
the platform led, adorned with the same chalked leg¬ 
ends—perhaps a few had been added. There was 
the same row of inquisitive loafers perched along the 
top rail of the unpainted fence which was designed 
to keep pedestrians from tumbling off the platform 
down into the main street of Millersville. There were 
the same dirty pipes, the same quids of tobacco, the 
same puddles of brown spit. 

45 


46 


TEE MOULD 


And down the lower level of the road, she could 
see the grocery store and post-office, in worse need 
of paint by two years; next them, the ice-cream parlor 
with the same fly-specked pink crepe paper window- 
hangings ; next that, Roper’s notion-store; all of them 
that same dirty ginger-color, as if Millersville had once 
purchased its paint at wholesale and never got any 
since; and behind and beyond this ginger-colored hub, 
stretching out as far as eye could see, the dreary 
farms. 

It was all even worse than she had remembered. 

A jocose brakeman entered the coach and informed 
Katherine that this was the end of the line—unless 
she wanted to go back with ’em. Bump, bump, went 
something on the platform. It was one of her trunks. 

Clutching several magazines, a mammoth box of 
chocolates, a novel and three or four wilted bunches 
of flowers to her—parting tributes from Baldie Dag¬ 
gett and several admiring schoolmates—Katherine 
hurried down the aisle, out onto the sooty platform 
of the coach, and down its steps. 

The loafers nudged each other, and puffed or spat 
more vigorously, according to their respective occu¬ 
pations. Though they would hardly have recognized 
this elegant young lady as the wild, raw girl who had 
taken the train for Boston under their eyes less than 
two years ago, they were in no doubt as to her identity. 
Everybody in Millersville knew that old lady Hicks 
was expecting her granddaughter to-day. 

“ Hrrr-h’m! ” said a fence-rail spectator. 

Katherine glanced at the fence-rail—one of those 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


47 


glances which efface by looking through. She was 
superb, magnificent, in an expensive gray light-weight 
suit, with a hat that beaked down over her brows in 
front, and flared up in back like a peacock’s tail; with 
an arm full of the luxurious perquisites of wealthy 
travelers, and with violets in her bosom, the silken 
tassels of the cord which bound them, swinging in 
careless elegance to the lowest button of her suit-coat. 
She was superb; superb, magnificent, insolent. 

Without troubling to recognize any old acquaint¬ 
ances who might be on the fence-rail, otherwise than 
by the effacing glance, she gave her trunk-checks to 
the baggageman and set out down the dusty road to the 
farms. 

Yes, none of it had by any chance changed for the 
better. Just as always—the fields, the fences, the an¬ 
gular, stupid houses, the unkempt chickens scratching 
in the road and pausing to glance inquisitively at her, 
heads on one side; the clutter of farm-machinery, 
decrepit wagon-bodies and sleigh-runners, wash-tubs 
and hogsheads, rusted junk and weather-beaten lum¬ 
ber in the barnyards; the barns and outhouses, some 
compact and prosperous-looking, some straggling, di¬ 
lapidated, with sagging roofs and gaping walls, 
“ shored up ” perhaps with worm-eaten timbers; but 
all of them ugly; none of them, by any accident, 
achieving picturesqueness. And in the dooryards were 
barelegged urchins, or an occasional frowsy woman 
who turned and stared at her as she passed. 

This was the beginning of Grandma Hicks's prop¬ 
erty now, at this fence-corner. It was a good prop- 


48 


TEE MOULD 


erty: a big farm, as Eastern farms go. Katherine 
gazed across its carefully cultivated acres with a 
gloomy scorn. As in the fable, the comfortable afflu¬ 
ence of the old village mouse looked very unattractive 
to the arrogant young relative from the city. 

Now she came in sight of the flat-faced, box-like 
white house, with the green blinds and the heavy gloom 
upon it of too many trees set too close to its walls. 
How well she knew the house, and its inner dimness, 
and the musty smell of upholstery that had been damp 
a score of years and never dried out! 

In the road, near the white gate in the green box- 
hedge, stood a figure. It was Katherine’s grand¬ 
mother. 

A wave of self-pity swept over Katherine. Why 
had Fate given her those two glorious years, if she 
was to come back—to this ? 

Her grandmother did not wave her apron; she sim¬ 
ply stood waiting by the gate—a short, squat, sturdy 
figure. Life had been hard for her. Another woman 
—a common, vulgar woman, at that—had taken the 
husband of her youth away from her even before her 
baby was born. That baby, grown a young girl, had 
been taken from her by the lure of the city; petted 
by the city; and then tossed aside, a broken creature 
who had to die. Yet she had never been able to take 
time for emotion: for upwards of fifty years she had 
had to be the man and woman both, of the farm. She 
had fed the hired hands in the house and worked with 
them in the fields. 

When the little Katherine, at seven years of age, 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


49 


had been sent to her f the old woman had welcomed 
the burden with a sort of passionate yearning toward 
the child; but this yearning and passion had been in¬ 
articulate. The habit of self-repression held. And 
the little Katherine had been a hard child to show 
affection to—shy and stiff and cold. Then, as Kath¬ 
erine had grown older, they had grown (as people 
who live together must do, if they cannot grow nearer 
together) farther and farther apart. Mrs. Hicks’s nar¬ 
row, positive ideas and a sort of quiet obstinacy in 
her make-up irritated the young girl almost to a frenzy 
at times; while Katherine’s wildness and total lack of 
any sense of responsibility toward her school, herself, 
her grandmother or the farm tasks, sometimes alarmed 
and sometimes antagonized Mrs. Hicks. There was 
this difference, however, in their attitude; the farther 
apart they drew, the deeper did a poignant regret 
strike into the grandmother’s heart, the more wistfully 
did she yearn to draw closer to her granddaughter; 
while Katherine, on the other hand, did not miss what 
she had never experienced, had no sense of loss, did 
not care. In the constantly recurring tug of wills, 
she was only interested in getting her way. 

Now as they met at the gate, each instinctively 
criticized the other in the first glance. In the back of 
Katherine’s head was the group of Montescue moth¬ 
ers: Angela’s mother, frail, delicate, exquisite; Marie’s 
mother, sumptuous, regal; Bettina’s mother, plump, 
pretty, dainty; Bess Freelyn’s mother, distinguished 
and haughty. And all of them beautifully dressed. 
. . . Against this background she felt as if she 



50 


THE MOULD 


saw her grandmother for the first time, pitilessly re¬ 
vealed. . . . And, while this was going on in one 

part of her consciousness, she saw, with another part, 
that her grandmother was criticizing her: did not ad¬ 
mire the beaked-and-fiaring hat, did not at all appre¬ 
ciate the lines of the expensive gray suit, did not ap¬ 
prove of the extravagant armful of light reading and 
bonbons. 

“ Well, Kathy/’ said her grandmother, then, with a 
sort of a smile and a sigh. 

“ Well, Grandma,” said Katherine. She bent to re¬ 
ceive her grandmother’s kiss. 

In silence they entered the house. Nothing in old 
Mrs. Hicks’s demeanor indicated that she was over¬ 
joyed to have her granddaughter back; Katherine’s 
manner repelled any demonstrations more frigidly than 
ever. But Katherine’s old room had been done over. 
There was a fine new paper, covered with large blue 
roses, on the walls. There was fresh paint on the 
woodwork. There were new lace curtains at the win¬ 
dows. There was a new carpet, of lavish design, on 
the floor. The cumbrous old black walnut bed had 
been replaced by one of shining brass—with a real 
hair mattress. 

And as Katherine was taking ofT her hat and coat, 
her grandmother brought in a pitcher of hot water 
for her to wash in. * , . 


( 2 ) 

Katherine did not reappear till supper-time. She 
looked pale; her eyes were ruby-rimmed; her nose, 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


51 


for all its courageous front of powder, showed the 
glaze of grief. The done-over room had been the 
last straw. It was all so hopeless. 

Grandma Hicks saw the telltale signs, and her old 
heart ached. What was the matter with the young 
folks nowadays? For almost seventy years she had 
lived on this farm which had been her father’s before 
her: it w r as bone of her bone, marrow of her marrow. 
Here Handsome Ansel had courted her during the 
brief, impetuous season of his love; here she had been 
married; here her baby, Belle Ansella had been born. 
She was like an old tree, rooted in this soil; to trans¬ 
plant her would be to kill her. . . . And she 

looked back at the corn-huskings, the quilting-parties, 
the barn-raisings, the sings, and thought to herself that 
young folks in those days had had good times aplenty; 
but young folks these days did not want such home- 
spun times. One by one, the sons and daughters of 
the farms were drifting to the towns and the cities; 
new people—“ book-farmers ”—were taking over the 
old places. A book-farmer named Mr. Walton 
had taken over old Sol Price’s, which adjoined her 
own. It was enough to make old Sol turn in his 
grave. 

And what of Hicks farm? After her death, would 
Kathy carry it on? A sudden fear gripped the old 
heart. The old place would pass out of the family— 
as all the old places were doing—some book-farmer 
would come in and turn everything upside down- 

“ What’s this ? ” Katherine’s voice, sharp with ex¬ 
citement, interrupted her musings. The girl was 



5 2 


THE MOULD 


reaching for a long white envelope which had been 
set on the clock-shelf so as not to be forgotten. 

“ It came two days ago/’ replied her grandmother. 
“ It’s from them lawyers of—of your father’s/' 

But Katherine was already tearing it open. Out of 
it fell a check—a check for an amount so fabulous, so 
incredible, that she turned pale. 

In the envelope was also a brief communication to 
the effect that, hereafter, by order of our client, Rich¬ 
ard M. Howard, Esq., Miss Howard would receive 
quarterly a remittance of the same size as this. That 
Mr. Howard wished to express the hope that it would 
be sufficient to enable her to live as and where she 
preferred. 

Katherine flushed scarlet. . . . Still, if mere 
humiliation was the price of this wonderful scrap of 
paper, it had been cheaply bought; for it ordered the 
payment to Miss Katherine Howard of two thousand 
five hundred dollars. Twenty-five hundred dollars! 
And there were to be four of these a year, every year, 
forever! Ten thousand dollars a year—for one girl 
to live on ! Ten thousand a year! Katherine's fingers, 
holding the check, trembled. It was too good to be 
true—yet it was true! 


( 3 ) 

Of course she would return to the city: that was 
taken for granted. But what sort of establishment 
ought a young lady with ten thousand dollars a year 
to spend, to set up? It was Angela who, by letter, 


A WILL AND THE WAY 53 

playfully suggested building a sweet little bungalow 
—with one guest-room sacred to Angela! 

The novel idea seized hold of Katherine’s imagina¬ 
tion. Tentatively she elaborated it, picturing a pretty 
gray “ villa,” of cement, with a pink-tiled roof and a 
pink-paved piazza, a charming conservatory over the 
porte-cochere, a darling breakfast-porch, a terraced 
lawn with walls overgrown with white honeysuckle 
and trumpet vines.—For the cozy-bungalow idea did 
not appeal to her at all. She was not that kind of a 
girl. 

Soon it obsessed Katherine—the little gray villa. 
Women are the world’s natural architects. Few of 
them but what feel strongly the house-building urge 
—the urge to design and to build, rather than to pur¬ 
chase ready-built or even ready-planned the home they 
are to live in. Katherine was no exception to the rule. 
At night, when she should have been sleeping so as to 
get up early the next morning and help her grand¬ 
mother, she was lying awake, planning the color 
schemes of the rooms, their arrangement and special 
features. In the daytime, in her idle hours, she 
drew sets of “ plans ” with pencil in an old Lit. note¬ 
book. 

How lucky that, in spite of a lack of family con¬ 
nections, she belonged in a definite set—thanks to 
Montescue clannishness! She would have a wonder¬ 
ful time! How the girls would envy her! Only a 
young girl herself, but the owner of a house, the em¬ 
ployer of servants, the arbiter of her own destiny! It 
was incredibly romantic! Unhampered by the stupidi- 


54 


THE MOULD 


ties of parental restraint to which girls are usually 
subjected, she, Katherine, the super-girl, would fol¬ 
low, in everything, the dictates of her own sweet will, 
and no one’s else! She would go about as she pleased. 
She would give wonderful parties. She would be in¬ 
vited to other people’s parties. . . . 

A sudden misgiving brought her up short. 

Would she be invited to people’s parties? Would 
people (the acid test) come to hers? 

She knew the answer very well, try to ignore it, in 
her rosy vaporings, as she might. Montescue alumnae 
might, for auld lang syne, include her in their parties 
—but they would not come to hers. They would 
want to—the bolder spirits; but socially shrewd 
mammas would never, never let them. Never let 
them become identified with a young girl who “ lived 
alone.” 

Her spirits, which had been soaring, dropped below 
zero. The super-girl felt cruelly defrauded by the 
same Fate which, a few moments before, she had been 
regarding as a delightful friend. Here she was—the 
possessor of wealth (yes, ten thousand a year really 
was wealth), style, popularity, and an immense ca¬ 
pacity for enjoying pleasure—and yet, for lack of one 
trivial item, all these possessions were to be rendered 
null and void. And the one possession she lacked was 
the very commonest in the world! Other girls every¬ 
where, from the richest to the poorest, had families; 
fathers, mothers, or at least married sisters or aunts 
or somebody—expressly provided for the sole purpose 
of giving them good times! She, Katherine, had no 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


55 


one. No one, that is, except Grandma Hicks, who, 
so far as the good times of an heiress were concerned, 
was worse than no one. 

Katherine glanced furtively across the room. It 
was evening, and Grandma Hicks was sitting by the 
kitchen table in the light of the kerosene lamp, neatly 
darning one of Katherine's silk stockings. She dis¬ 
approved of silk stockings for every-day wear, both 
from the standpoint of modesty and of economy; but 
she disapproved still more sternly of Katherine’s 
Epicurean habit of throwing them away as soon as 
a hole appeared. 

No, Grandma Hicks was worse than no one. Still 
—from the outer shadow, Katherine regarded the old 
woman speculatively. Proper clothes w r ork miracles. 
A soft, fine-wool dress of dark gray, now, with sheer 
collar and cuffs of white, and a velvet bow drooping 
from beneath a costly, old-fashioned brooch at the 
throat—a black satin gown with jet, a trifle quaint in 
cut, but immensely dignified—expensive but quiet hats 
—a fur coat reminiscent of the days when sealskin 
was really seal and not dyed rat- . . . 

Of course you could never hide Grandma Hicks’s 
past. The records were graven too deep. No beauty- 
expert could soften the weather-beaten skin to rose- 
leaf, or erase the deep furrows with which pain and 
grief and over-hard toil had criss-crossed the old face. 
No alchemy of the manicure could make a fine lady’s 
hand out of those swollen knuckles and roughened 
palms and broken nails on which the silk tissue of the 
stockings caught continually. 



56 


THE MOULD 


Still—one glance at Grandma Hicks revealed a 
quality which no one could miss: respectability. 

And wasn’t that, after all, the essential thing? 
Wasn’t, after all, what Katherine needed, merely a 
figurehead of respectability for her unconventional 
establishment? She didn’t need a mother’s affection, 
a mother’s care, parental guidance or restraint. All 
she needed was someone to offer to inquiring parents 
of the girls she wished to play with as a sort of 
voucher of respectability. 

The girls might snicker at the old lady’s lack of 
grammar and savoir faire; but their mothers would be 
satisfied. The latter would never know that Grandma 
Hicks left her spoon in her coffee-cup. They would 
only know that she was the most respectable, quaint, 
puritanical stern old dear that ever chaperoned a 
granddaughter; and that it was accordingly quite safe 
for their precious girls to visit Katherine—Richard 
M. Howard’s heiress, by the way. (For even on 
Beacon Hill, where one affects to ignore it, money 
still talks persuasively.) 

“ Grandma,” inquired Katherine, conversationally, 
“ how should you like to go to Boston to live? ” 

Mrs. Hicks took another stitch or two. Then, with¬ 
out looking up, she replied grimly, “ I begun my days 
in Millersville, and I guess I’ll likely end ’em in Mil- 
lersville.” 

This opening seeming unpropitious, Katherine did 
not press the point; for she wished to think the mat¬ 
ter over and be sure that Grandma Hicks really was 
necessary to her before she brought it to an issue. 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


57 


The next day she wrote to a Boston architect of 
whom she knew, enclosing sketches of her idea for 
the “ villa ” and requesting estimates from him. 

Within the fortnight she received his reply. Now 
was visible the first rift in the lute. It appeared that 
Katherine had sketched a very expensive little villa. 
Everything about it, from the tiled roof to the many 
bathrooms and sunken tubs, seemed to be exactly the 
kind of thing that wears a high price-tag. Even the 
architect whom she had picked came high. It was 
very discouraging. 

Could she compromise with her ideal—accept a 
cheaper sort of roof—tubs merely built-in—two fire¬ 
places instead of six? Never! The little gray villa 
had enthralled Katherine, in its entirety, in its perfec¬ 
tion, pink-tiled roof and all. She must possess it, and 
possess it in its entirety, in its perfection, in all its 
redundancy of baths and hearths. 

She took pencil and note-book once more, and 
figured long and industriously; but in vain. By no 
sort of mathematical jugglery could she build the 
pink-and-gray villa out of her allowance, beautifully 
sufficient for anything as that allowance had seemed, 
till now. 

Then a brilliant idea flashed up from her subcon¬ 
scious mind, like an inspiration of genius. 

If Grandma Hicks went to Boston with her, what 
would Grandma Hicks need of a farm? 

It was a good farm, a valuable piece of property. 
Katherine knew just what it could be expected to 
bring, for she had overheard Mrs. Hicks telling her 


58 


TEE MOULD 


crony, Nancy Curtis, several evenings before, that the 
new book-farmer, Mr. Walton, who had bought old 
Sol Price’s farm, adjoining hers, wanted to buy hers 
also. Katherine remembered the exact amount which, 
Mrs. Hicks had said, Mr. Walton had offered. Her 
heart beat fast. She wrote down the amount of Mr. 
Walton’s offer, and, beside it, she wrote down the 
architect’s estimate. She gazed excitedly at the two 
little rows of figures. The sale of the farm would 
build the villa! 

To be sure, Grandma Hicks had not yet consented 
to go to Boston to live, though Katherine had some¬ 
what developed the subject. There was beneath that 
unruffled reiteration: “ I guess I’ll end my days in 
Millersville,” a strange vein of obstinacy. This, how¬ 
ever, did not cause Katherine any anxiety. She was 
used to getting her own way, and she had no doubt 
that she would get it now—in due season. She hadn’t 
yet played her trump card. 

It was, however, about time to play it. The days 
were slipping by. Already it was the end of June. 
It takes time to build a little pink-and-gray villa which 
is to be perfection to the last detail. She was anxious 
to buy the lot (she had in mind just the location she 
wanted) and to have the ground broken. None of 
this could be done till Gradma Hicks’s determination 
to end her days in Millersville was overcome, and the 
farm sold. 

Accordingly Katherine opened fire on her grand¬ 
mother that evening as they sat by the kitchen lamp. 
Many girls of the more crafty, circuitous instincts 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


59 


supposed to be characteristic of the sex, would have 
been extra helpful all that day; perhaps, that evening’, 
would have shown some solicitude about Grandma’s 
eyesight and taken the stockings and darned them 
themselves. 

Not so Katherine, whose nature was nothing if not 
straightforward, and scornful of subterfuge. She be- 
gan her attack, therefore, with characteristic direct¬ 
ness. 

“ Grandma, you know when I go to Boston to live, 
I’m going to take you with me.” 

In and out, in and out across the strands of darning- 
cotton that bridged a hole, this time in one of her own 
coarse, thick stockings, went Grandma’s needle, as she 
replied, “ I begun my days in Millersville, Kathy, and 
I guess I’ll likely end ’em here.” 

Katherine checked on her lips an impatient, flippant 
query as to whether the climate at Millersville was 
more favorable to dying than elsewhere, and proceeded 
along her prearranged line of attack. 

“ But your life is so hard here, Grandma. It would 
be for your own self-interest. Now in Boston you 
wouldn’t have a thing to do all day long but rest.” 

“ I guess I wouldn’t know what to do with myself 
without any work to keep me busy,” replied Grandma, 
setting her lips rather straight. “ I guess when I die 
it’ll be in harness.” 

“ I don’t see why you talk about dying so much! ” 
exclaimed Katherine, impatiently. 

“Young folks talk about marrying; old folks talk 
about dying.” 


GO 


THE MOULD 


“ Well, anyway, before you do die, Grandma, 
wouldn’t you like to see something of the world ? ” 
wheedled Katherine. 

“ I guess Millersville’s a fair sample,” observed the 
old lady. 

“ Millersville! ” Katherine’s exasperation burst all 
bounds in the face of her grandmother’s impregnable 
serenity. “ Millersville! ” 

Obviously there was no use skirmishing. She must 
execute her grand coup. 

“ Well, then,” she said with a shrug. “ Of course 
if you won’t come and live with me, I suppose I shall 
have to go by myself.” 

Her grandmother’s hands trembled—or perhaps it 
was only the flickering of the lamplight in an eddy of 
night-breeze from the open window that made it seem 
so. 

“ Oh, well, I suppose I’m old enough to take care 
of myself,” murmured Katherine, cheerfully. She 
rose from her chair and strolled about the room, hum¬ 
ming a little tune. 

Grandma dropped a stitch, and bent low over her 
work, picking it up. 

“ I think I’ll start about the end of this week,” re¬ 
marked Katherine. 

Now this was the time to have sauntered uncon¬ 
cernedly out of the kitchen; but Katherine could not 
resist the temptation to wait and see the result of her 
coup. 

There was no doubt now that Grandma’s hands were 
trembling. She dropped another stitch. 


A WILL AND TEE WAY 61 

Just so had her own girl, her Belle Ansella, gone 
to the city—alone. 

A small drop of wetness plashed on the stocking. 

Katherine saw it, but made no sign. She leaned 
her elbows on the window-sill and peered out at the 
lovely night. Stirrings, sleepy twitterings, came up 
out of the dark to her; the raspings of insect’s wings, 
the soft rustle of grasses. Fireflies flashed their eerie 
lanterns, circling, mounting, swooping, leaving little 
fiery trails for an instant in the dark. 

For an instant, Katherine felt the beauty and ro¬ 
mance and mystery of night in the country pressing 
in on her: then her thoughts returned to her own de¬ 
sires, and the night was shut out. 

Mrs. Hicks had laid down her mending. Stealthily, 
puritanically ashamed of emotion, she wiped her old 
eyes. Then she spoke, and her voice was harsh. 

“ Come here, Kathy.” 

Katherine, allowing her own lips to set, just for an 
instant, so that, for that instant, she looked a little 
like her grandmother, drew a rocker into the circle of 
the lamplight. 

“ Kathy,” said her grandmother, sternly. Then her 
voice softened. She was conscious that hardness had 
always alienated, would always alienate, this head¬ 
strong granddaughter. She made an almost pathetic 
effort to win her this time, instead of to alienate. 
“ Kathy,” she said brokenly, “ ’tain’t easy for you and 
me to talk. Seems like we always set each other to 
loggerheads. You’ve been brought up different from 
my day. Things I set store by don’t seem to you like 


62 


THE MOULD 


they were worth much; and I suppose the things you 
set store by don’t seem much to me. But there’s some 
things, Kathy, that were worth a lot in the days of 
Noah; and that will be worth just as much the day 
the Angel Gabriel blows his last trump.” 

Katherine suppressed an amused smile. Noah! 
The Angel Gabriel! 

Mrs. Hicks did not perceive the smile. She went 
on, still with that pathetic effort at conciliation: “ One 
o’ them is a woman’s purity.” 

Katherine fidgeted. To the young, discussion of 
these matters by the old is unseemly and painfully 
embarrassing. 

Unheeding, Mrs. Hicks went on: “ The city ain’t 
any place for a young girl alone. I know I’m only an 
ugly old woman and ignorant so fur as book-learning 
goes; but I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve seen a lot o’ 
things happen. . . . 

“ There was Celie Trueblood went down to Boston, 
years and years ago. . . . And never seen or 
heard of since. . . . And there was Rosie Curtis, 

old Nancy’s niece, went down to Boston, years and 
years ago; and one day they got a notice from the 
government down there to come and see if ’twas Rosie 
dead in the morgue, with a cried-up letter from Nancy 
in her dress-front. And it was. . . . And then 

there was—just a young girl—just your age, Kathy— 
eyes like yours—headstrong, just like you-” 

Mrs. Hicks cleared her throat. 

“ Oh, but Grandma,” interrupted Katherine, impa¬ 
tient of the emotional appeal, and embarrassed by it, 



A WILL AND THE WAY 


63 


“ don’t you see how different it all is ? They had no 
money, and that was the cause. I am not going down 
to the city to make a living! I shall have ten thou¬ 
sand dollars a year, Grandma! Ten thousand a year! 
Don’t you see how different that makes it all ? ” 

“ Sand-” muttered Mrs. Hicks, shaking her 

head. “ A house built on the sand. An allowance 
don’t seem to me, Kathy, a very solid foundation to 
build on. Supposing- ” 

Katherine smiled, a superior smile. “ That’s just 
because you haven’t had any experience wkh one, 
Grandma,” she explained, interrupting again. “ An 
allowance is just as solid as any other form of in¬ 
come. You don’t understand it, that’s all.” 

“ Supposing your—father should die, Kathy? ” sug¬ 
gested her grandmother. 

“If there were a will, he would undoubtedly pro¬ 
vide for me in it,” said Katherine. “ If there were no 
will—I haven’t looked up the law on the subject”— 
Katherine admitted largely, “ but I have no doubt but 
what, in such an event, I should be ”—in spite of her¬ 
self, her voice quivered as she spoke the awe-inspiring 
words, “ his heir.” 

“ And supposing he has already made a will,” sug¬ 
gested Mrs. Hicks, bluntly. " Years ago—before he 
got interested in you—an’ forgot to change it, Kathy; 
then what ? ” 

Katherine sniffed impatiently. “ Oh—well-” 

she replied, rather vaguely. 

There was a short pause. 

Mrs. Hicks cleared her throat again. 





64 


THE MOULD 


“ I’ve come to figure out, Kathy,” she resumed, 
“ that the city ain’t any place for a young girl alone.” 

“ Yet,” cried Katherine, quick to follow up this ad¬ 
vantage, “ you’re going to let me go alone! ” 

Mrs. Hicks looked, rather perplexed, at her grand¬ 
daughter. 

“ Kathy,” she said, “ why’re you so set on going to 
Boston? ” 

“ Why ? ” echoed Katherine, somewhat at a loss, for 
the question was one whose answer, like a geometric 
axiom, was so simple that it ought to be seen by any¬ 
one, and yet was not easily demonstrable. “ Why, for 
—every reason. Anybody would rather live in Boston 
than in Millersville, of course! ” 

“ I know one that wouldn’t,” retorted Mrs. Hicks, 
grimly. The moment for reconciliation was past. 

( 4 ) 

Mrs. Hicks had a wise, age-old theory. What Kath¬ 
erine needed was a husband and a whole brood of 
children. Children were what tamed a girl; made her 
settle down. And perhaps down there in Boston, 
among her rich friends, was the young man whom 
Katherine was to marry. This, perhaps, was God’s 
plan for Kathy. The stern old woman was softened 
in the presence of this thought. 

So when Katherine, rising, issued her stormy ulti¬ 
matum : “ So I’m going! And since you want me to 
go alone, I’ll go alone! ” Victory had already perched 
on her standard, though neither she nor her grand¬ 
mother was, as yet, aware of the fact. It was not till 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


65 


the next evening that Mrs. Hicks, who had spent some 
hours on her knees in pious, earnest entreaty at the 
Heavenly Footstool, and who felt at last that God’s 
will and her duty had been revealed to her, announced 
to Katherine that she would go with her to the city, if 
Katherine must go. 

“ Oh, Grandma! I’m so glad! ” trilled Katherine, 
joyously. “ Three cheers! Don’t look so lugubrious, 
old dear! You’re going to have the time of your 
life! You will love it! ” 

Of course, actually, the more important part of the 
plan—the selling of the farm and conversion of the 
proceeds into a villa—was yet to be accomplished; 
but Katherine had little anxiety about that. Where 
there’s a will there’s a way. The super-girl had a very 
strong will, and she was used to having her way. She 
had had it in this matter so far; she expected to keep 
on having it. 

She let the matter rest for the time being, but the 
following afternoon, after the dishes were done, and 
Mrs. Hicks had sat down with some dish-towels to 
hem, Katherine broached the subject with a fine cas¬ 
ualness : 

“ By the way, Grandma, when we go to Boston, 
what shall you do with the farm ? ” 

Mrs. Hicks’s reply was grim: “ I sh’ll have to rent, 
I suppose.” 

“ Why not sell outright?” suggested Katherine, 
cheerfully. “ I know you have a good offer.” 

Mrs. Hicks raised her head. She stared, absolutely 
speechless, at her incredible granddaughter. 


66 


THE MOULD 


“ You know I was thinking/’ continued Katherine, 
conversationally, “ how much nicer it would be for 
us both if, instead of an apartment, we should take a 
little house. Of course I could rent, easily enough. 
But, on the other hand, we could satisfy ourselves so 
much better by buying one. 

“ Or better yet/’ she added brightly, after a mo¬ 
ment’s silence, “ by building! ” 

Her grandmother’s attentive gaze encouraged her. 
She described with mounting confidence, the pink- 
and-gray villa. She got out the architect’s tentative 
blue-prints; thus unconsciously revealing the fact 
that for some time past she had been going ahead 
as if her grandmother’s consent had already been 
won. 

“Of course all this will cost money,” the diplo¬ 
matic girl concluded, amiably. “ But I was thinking 
—suppose you should sell the farm, then we could 
build the villa.” 

She leaned back complacently in her chair, as if 
awaiting what could only be a favorable, a delighted 
answer. 

Mrs. Hicks looked at her strangely. 

“ And when I have sold my property and given the 
money to you-” 

Katherine interrupted with a quick gesture. “ Of 
course the villa will belong to you --” 

“ The viller, as you call it, ain’t going to earn me 
anything,” said Mrs. Hicks, grimly. “ When I have 
got rid of my farm and put the money into your viller, 
what shall I live on ? ” 




A WILL AND THE WAY 67 

“ Why, Grandma! ” protested Katherine, “ Of 
course you’ll be living with me! ” 

“On what?” demanded Mrs. Hicks, still with that 
strange look. 

“ On my allowance, of course! ” laughed Katherine. 
“ Isn’t ten thousand enough-” 

She stopped abruptly. 

Mrs. Hicks had risen suddenly. Her back had 
straightened. She was as white as paper and her eyes 
blazed. 

“No!” she cried. “No! Live on blood-money? 
Eat my bread from the hands that murdered my girl ? 
No. Not that.” 

Her voice failed her suddenly. Her brown face 
showed grayish as the blood receded. She swayed. 

Katherine sprang up and caught her by the arm. 

“ What’s the matter, Grandma ? ” she cried sharply. 

The old lady opened her eyes, which had closed, and 
smiled. 

“ Nothing,” she said. “ Go away, Kathy, for a little 
while. I’ll set a spell and rest.” 

Katherine, from the threshold of her room, listened 
in terror to the silence of the kitchen. Suppose her 
grandmother had died? People—old people, particu¬ 
larly—sometimes die of shock! Suppose she had 
killed her grandmother? 

The creak of a rocker, by and by, reassured her. 
She stole along the little dark hallway, to a position 
from which, in a mirror over the sink, she could see 
her grandmother, swinging calmly to and fro in her 
favorite rocker, hemming dish-towels, and smiling. 



68 


THE MOULD 


The sight of Mrs. Hicks, so normal, so tranquil, so 
undisturbed while Katherine had been working her¬ 
self up to a pitch of remorseful anxiety which she now 
saw to have been ridiculous, kindled a sudden rage in 
the girl. 

She walked swiftly back to her room. She dragged 
an armful of clothes from the hook in the old-fash¬ 
ioned “ wardrobe ” and thrust them into one of her 
trunks, which still, by her wish, stood in her room. 
Armful by armful, she emptied wardrobe and bureau 
drawers, and crushed their contents into the trunks, 
regardless of the havoc she was making. 

Then she flung on a hat, took a cameFs-hair coat 
over one arm, and her alligator-skin bag in one hand, 
and walked swiftly out into the kitchen, her heart still 
hot with the revulsion of rage, disappointment and 
chagrin. 

“ Good-bye, Grandma,” she said, coldly. “ I’m off. 
My trunks will be called for.” 

“ Where are you going? ” asked Mrs. Hicks sharply. 

“ That I should say,” retorted Katherine, with de¬ 
liberate cruelty, “ is solely my own concern.” 

She turned and walked out. Mrs. Hicks sat mo¬ 
tionless in her favorite rocker. 

Katherine walked swiftly down the front path. She 
opened the front gate and passed out into the dust of 
the road. She walked swiftly toward the station, with¬ 
out a backward look. 

Suddenly she heard a queer, choked cry. 

“ Kathy! ” 

She turned sharply. 


A WILL AND THE WAY 


69 


It was her grandmother, bareheaded, her old arms 
stretched out, running, stumbling down the road after 
her. 

“Kathy!” she choked. “Don’t go away—alone! 
I’ll- Oh, my God, I’ll sell-” 

She plunged forward, in a heap. 

Katherine tried to lift her; tried to drag her back 
to the house. 

The burden was beyond her strength. She placed 
her own hat to shield her grandmother’s head; then 
she ran wildly down the road toward Nancy Curtis’s. 

Mr. Walton, the book-farmer, driving home from 
Dover, jumped his speedometer from eighteen miles 
to forty-five as he saw the dark heap in the road afar 
off, and the flying figure running toward him and 
signaling. 

He carried the old woman, still unconscious, into the 
“ spare room ” and laid her on the great bed. Kath¬ 
erine applied what little first aid she knew of, while 
the book-farmer telephoned to Dover for a doctor. 

Nancy Curtis came, too; and the best doctor in 
Dover: but it was all of no use. Grandma Hicks’s 
time had come. 


( 5 ) 

Toward midnight, Katherine was alone with her. 
The lamp, its flame turned low, sent flickering shadows 
across the bed, with its long mound of counterpane. 

Suddenly, with a start, Katherine, who had been 
brooding sombrely, realized that the whiteness of the 
expanse was interrupted. Her grandmother’s eyes. 




70 THE MOULD 

which had been shut, were open. They produced a 
startling effect. 

“ Wh-what is it. Grandma ? ” stammered the girl, 
terrified. 

Mrs. Hicks seemed to come back from somewhere 
far away. 

“ Kathy, I—was right, you see. I’m going—to end 
—here.” 

“ Oh, Grandma, Grandma, don’t! ” begged Kather¬ 
ine, in a stifled scream, hysterical with remorse. The 
super-girl was cowed. She sensed a Stronger than 
herself in the room. 

“ Hush! ” Mrs. Hicks spoke with increasing diffi¬ 
culty. It was an agony to watch her struggle with 
the numbness that would have closed her lips and 
hushed her voice. 

“ The farm—yours now—don’t sell- Rent.” 

Katherine thought it was over. 

But the old lips quivered, opened again. A whisper 
emerged. Katherine bent to catch it: 

“ Allowance—house—on sand. . . . Rent. . . . 
Then—income—always . . . even 

if . . .” 

The old voice trailed into silence. 

Katherine sat, paralyzed by the sight of that awful 
paralysis. 

The face in the pillow quivered. The eyelids lifted 
with an effort, as though they w r ere unutterably heavy. 
The eyes fixed on Katherine with uncanny significance. 
But the lips, if there was a message from the edge of 
death, were dumb. 



A WILL AND THE WAY 71 

It had come! The struggle of the flesh to retain 
the spirit. 

Katherine shrieked. Nancy Curtis, who had been 
snatching a nap on the couch in the kitchen, came run¬ 
ning; but it was all over before she got there. The 
flesh, after all, had held the spirit but lightly. The 
serenity of eternal peace had already smoothed the old 
face in which life had worn so many trails of care and 
grief. Grandma Hicks’s days were ended—in Millers- 
ville. 

Katherine, the brand of Cain on her brow, sat white 
and shuddering. Trying to pray. Trying to pray the 
brand of Cain away. Trying to pour her remorse into 
the deaf ears of the tenantless body. 

And all the time, deep down, she knew that this 
storm of her soul was transitory. Beneath the surges 
and the shrieking winds, lay, submerged but unaltered, 
the rock of her Will. 


CHAPTER IV 


BORED 

(O 

Bored to death. Just bored to death. Too bored 
even to yawn. 

Katherine sat on the edge of a gray wicker chaise 
longue and thought about it. She was bored of her 
life, bored of her house (the exquisite gray villa she 
had had such pleasure in building), bored of her 
friends, bored of herself—of herself especially. 

It was two years since her grandmother’s death, her 
selling of the farm to the neighboring book-farmer, 
and her shaking of the dust of Millersville from her 
exquisitely shod feet. Two years! She sighed. 

She glanced at her jeweled bracelet-watch, which 
lay at hand on a graceful gray tabouret, along with the 
latest copy of The Fast Set, a candy-box full of 
empty crinkly pink-paper cups, a bowl of daffodils 
(which was evidently the tabouret’s intended decora¬ 
tion), a monogrammed ivory nail-buffer, a little pile 
of snapshots just up from the photographer’s, a small 
ash-tray heaped with cigarette-stubs, a platinum ciga¬ 
rette case, open and half empty, and some other small 
unrecognizable litter. 

Eleven-thirty. One hour since breakfast. Two 
hours till luncheon. She must do something. What? 

She must do something, and there was nothing to 

72 


BORED 


73 


do. Nothing, that is to say, which intrigued her fancy. 
Of course literally there was anything and everything. 
Everything or anything she pleased. Nothing is be¬ 
yond the reach of ten thousand a year. 

For instance, she could go to the manicurist’s. Her 
nails needed a thorough going over. 

Or she could call up the shampoo-place for some¬ 
one to come and wash her hair and give her a facial 
massage. 

Or she could go down-town shopping. There was 
nothing she needed, but anything she should have sent 
out could be sent back next day after she tired of 
looking at it. 

Or she could call up Angela and arrange to meet 
her for luncheon. Then they could go to something— 
a movie or something—in the afternoon. That is (her 
gloomy gaze shifted for an instant to the empty 
candy-box) if Angela had not made herself sick on 
chocolates last night. Angela, whose allowance from 
her father was penuriously small, was always making 
herself sick on Katherine’s chocolates. 

Or (her gaze reverted to a long mirror opposite the 
chaise longue) she could take the car out for a drive. 

Or she could start on a trip—to New York or Los 
Angeles or London or Archangel or anywhere else 
she chose; most of the world was still unseen. But 
gorges and primeval forests, factories, public build¬ 
ings and villages, museums and ruins, did not fire her 
imagination. The very thought of them depressed 
and wearied her. 

In short, though the super-girl could do practically 


74 


THE MOULD 


anything in the world she wished, she was as badly off 
as if she had been unable to do anything—since there 
was nothing she wished to do. 

She yawned at last, and reached—again—for the 
cigarette-case. 

The mirror opposite her held a picture worthy of 
philosophic consideration: a section of two gray walls 
and a casement window; on one wall, in a narrow 
black frame, a Japanese print fit to inspire dreams; 
on the other, a little Russian icon, packed with human 
story; a bit of costly gray Chinese rug on the polished 
floor; the long French chair and a tasseled cushion 
from the Arts and Crafts—black with sprays of wis¬ 
taria; the graceful turkish tabouret littered with tri¬ 
fles from the jeweler, the confectioner, the photog¬ 
rapher and the story factory. The world had been 
rifled to make a setting for the American super-girl 
who, half-wrapped in a burnoose of Broussa silk and 
with beaded Paris mules on her feet, held the centre 
Of the picture. Figuratively speaking, Aladdin's lamp 
sat on the tabouret, and the Magic Carpet lay under 
the chaise longue. 

Yet a frown—not to say scowl—knit the black brows 
of the portrayed girl in the mirror; her fine shoulders 
sagged; the cigarette dangled from her languid fin¬ 
gers ; her whole vigorous, athletic figure was slumped 
ungracefully. “ They are as sick that surfeit with 
too much, as they that starve with nothing.” Sicker, 
perhaps. In short, had the mirror been a canvas, it 
might very appropriately have been listed in the Spring 
Catalogue as “ L'Ennui.” 


BORED 


75 


A little knock on the door interrupted the picture. 

“ Come! ” said Katherine, leaning on the cushions. 

A small, attenuated gentlewoman in black with a 
quick little tread and a mousey look, entered and 
slipped across the room to the closet, murmuring 
explanatorily: “ I noticed the coral gown needs a 
snap.” 

Katherine sighed. As the mousey woman slipped 
noiselessly from the room, the girl spoke: “ Dis¬ 
connect the 'phone, will you, Mrs. Jordane? And if 
anyone calls, tell them I’m sick—out—dead—any¬ 
thing.” 

“ Very well, Miss Katherine,” replied the mousey 
one, who was Katherine's efficient housekeeper and 
official chaperone. She shot an intelligent glance at 
the girl, and, going out, closed the door soundlessly 
behind her. 

Katherine wriggled petulantly in the delicate em¬ 
brace of the chaise longue. Her querulous questing 
gaze fell on The Fast Set. To read was to follow 
the line of least resistance; but she could not endure 
the silly, spurious eroticisms of this particular maga¬ 
zine. They bored her intolerably. She only harbored 
the publication because Angela adored it, and her 
mother would not allow it in the house. 

Still --- 

Katherine reached a listless hand for it, picked it 
up, flipped the leaves. A letter fell out from between 
them. She replaced it; tossed the magazine down 
again. 

If she were only strong-minded like Bess Freelyn, 



76 


TEE MOULD 


and could take an interest in suffrage, and women’s 
clubs, and Consumer’s Leagues and things! 

Or if only she were sentimental like Angela, and 
could humbug herself by playing at little charities and 
“ uplift ” movements! 

Or if only she were good-naturedly malicious like 
Bettina, and could get never-failing interest out of 
gently pushing human pawns about on her little world’s 
private chess-board, and watching with animation the 
progress of her game with Fate! 

Or if she were even downright devilish like Ma¬ 
rie. . . . 

She picked up The Fast Set again, flipped the pages 
again. The letter again fell out. 

She stared at its envelope gloomily. It was Angela’s 
latest letter from her brother Paul, who lived in Italy. 
He had the secret—this Paul. He knew how to keep 
from being bored. His letter—like all her corre¬ 
spondence, Angela had read it to her,—his letter 
had tingled, had thrilled with a fulness of life, a joy 
of life, a thirst and a deep-drinking of life. What 
was the secret—that some people had, and she missed ? 

She drew the letter from its sheath. She read it 
again. 

The letter had lost much in Angela’s tinkling rendi¬ 
tion. Angela, who had a sort of scared admiration of 
her prodigal brother, leavened with a sort of shrewd 
human appraisal of him at his true worth, was not 
quite equal to reproducing the heights and depths and 
fulness of his paragraphs. 

Now that she read it herself, the letter stirred Kath- 


BORED 


77 


erine queerly. It was not that she was in love with 
Angela’s brother, whom, indeed, she had never seen, 
since he had not been home on a visit in four years. He 
was devoted to his studies, which had been, at one 
time, painting; at another, sculpture; vocal culture, 
now. As Angela was wont sagely to remark: “ Paolo 
has to keep studying something; else Papa would stop 
his allowance and he would have to come home. He 
is thirty and has never earned a cent yet.” 

No, Katherine was not in love even with the idea of 
Paolo. She was not, and never had been, in love with 
anybody. She had never had a “ lover,” as Angela 
and the other girls of the set ingenuously called what 
our grandmothers called “ beaux.” Katherine had 
never had a beau—for Baldie Daggett was not, prop¬ 
erly speaking, a beau, though he and Katherine were al¬ 
ways paired off together by the set. No, Baldie was 
not a beau. He had never held her hand; he had 
never kissed her. Indeed she had never been kissed 
by anybody. 

As she felt the thick, smooth paper of Paolo’s letter 
between her fingers, a passion of discontent swelled up 
so big in her that it seemed as if only the gusty expul¬ 
sion of her breath kept her from bursting apart into 
a million atoms. For Paolo, obviously, was not dis¬ 
contented. Paolo licked his lips for life. He rolled 
life under his tongue. Even the feel of his stationery 
declared it. 

“ Ah, Angellina,” the words on the flat of the page, 
in their beautiful bold black characters, sprang out: 
“You ask me when I shall return! Never! You do 


78 


THE MOULD 


not understand, my little sister! . * . Let me 

see if I can explain. . . . There is a garden that 

I know of, high, high on the side of Posillipo. The 
little round tables of the restaurant all’aria aperta on 
its secluded terrace are almost always deserted. There 
are dark trees heavy with sweetness, and a low wall 
about its edge, beneath which lies all Napoli. 

“ At noon the voice of the city comes up to it 
faintly—the shouts of donkey-boys and carriage- 
drivers, the cracking of whips, the droning of priests, 
the cries of the venders of spinaci and piselli, the 
chantings of naked fishermen, the quarrelings of lov¬ 
ers, the high singings of young girls carrying water 
from the fountains—all incessant, all at top voice— 
the voice of Napoli. 

“But at dusk—ah, Angellina! Then all is shad¬ 
owed. All is drenched in mystery. Then all the 
shoutings and cryings out and shriekings are hushed; 
and only the songs remain—only the songs of lovers; 
rising from the streets and the byways, from the bal¬ 
conies and the cafes, from little boats on the purpling 
sea and from the lighted quai where Santa Lucia 
gleams jewel-like, and from the vineyards beyond 
which, shadowed faintly in the twilight sky, Vesuvius 
lies sleeping. All is mystery. A woman’s eyes, held 
in one’s own, are mystery: her hair is mystery: lovo 
is mystery: life is mystery. 

“ Have you any such noons—such twilights—in 
your Bahston? No, in America all is ugly—even the 
names of the cities! Buildings are hideous, women 
are suffragettes, your streets have no vistas, love has 


BORED 


79 


no subtlety, life is a vulgar rush, even sin is tawdry 
and without charm. Return? Never! Io sono Ital- 
iano! I am an Italian! She is my beloved: Italia! 
Women are meteors: she, Italy, is my planet of 
love. . . . 

/ “ You ask me of ‘Beatrice/ All, ‘Bice'! Una 
tlgre! Feroce! Sometime she will stick me with a 
small dagger; and then all will be over. But how she 
enraptures me! Tell me, Angellina, dost think the 

padre - Yet I know the answer without asking. 

The father would never consent; and of course with¬ 
out his consent-- Alas! . . . For after mar¬ 
riage one must still eat. . . 

Katherine skipped the rest of the letter, which was 
concerned with the more prosaic side of Paolo’s life. 
Dreamily, with black brows knit, she pondered over 
what she had read, striving to take it in. 

She could not take it in. She could not assay it. 
Yet, somehow, it stirred her. There was something 
lawless about it—nothing one could put a finger on— 
yet it called to the mutinous heart of her. It stirred 
her to revolt. 

Life had been too flat—too colorless! She had a 
right to something more—or different—than it had 
given her! 

There is a Turkish proverb which says: “ The Devil 
may tempt the busy man; but the idle man tempts the 
Devil.” 


( 2 ) 

Babette, Katherine’s perfect up-stairs maid, brought 




80 


THE MOULD 


in a card on which was nicely engraved in square let¬ 
ters, “ Mr. Archibald Daggett.” 

“ Bother! ” said Katherine. She looked down at 
the thick, creamy surface of Paolo’s epistle. Baldie 
was decidedly a prosy and non-stimulating young man. 

“ What does he want, Babette ? ” she asked. 

Babette replied, with her perfect manner, which 
never gave the slightest hint of a human being with 
human desires, individual preferences, normal curiosi¬ 
ties about her employers, and a life apart: “I don’t 
know, Miss Howard. Mr. Daggett didn’t say.” 

Katherine sighed deeply. The days had been when 
she had hailed Baldie’s every arrival as the advent of 
a chosen “ pal,” a boon companion. She had smoked 
with Baldie, swum with Baldie, ridden with Baldie, 
canoed with Baldie, motored with Baldie, gossiped 
with Baldie, quarreled with Baldie and made it up. 
But those days were days of a dead past—before she 
became chronically bored. Baldie had been a good pal, 
but his day was done; for he could not lift her out of 
her boredom. 

The pathetic thing was that Baldie did not seem to 
realize that his day was done. He seemed to take it 
for granted, in the most obtuse way, that he and 
Katherine were just as good pals as ever, and always 
would be. It would really have been touching—if it 
had not been so irritating. Katherine sighed again— 
volcanically. 

“ Well—tell him if he wants to wait I’ll be down in 
a half hour. Then come back and help me dress.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Babette. 


BORED 


81 


Left alone, after the respectful click of the latch 
behind Babette, Katherine once more scowled in the 
mirror. 

Everybody was so silly about Baldie. Angela, in 
particular. Only last night, Angela had taken Kath¬ 
erine severely to task about him. Angela had said 
that Katherine ought to make up her mind whether or 
not she wanted to marry Baldie; and if she wanted to, 
then she ought to bring him to the point and become 
engaged to him; and if she didn’t want to marry him, 
she ought to turn him loose. 

“ It’s an injustice to you and to him,” Angela had 
declared strenuously. “ It’s an injustice to him, be¬ 
cause anybody can see that he is dead in love with 
you, only he doesn’t know how to break through into 
love-making. If you want him, you ought to show 
him how, and have it over with. If you don’t want 
him, it’s an injustice to yourself to allow him to 
monopolize you so. You’ll never get a chance at any¬ 
body else so long as the fellows all think Baldie has 
his tag on you. It’s men’s curious idea of honor— 
they never think of our side of it! A man like 
Baldie is to a girl like a scarecrow in a field of corn! 
Nobody else will ever come around so long as he is 
there. If you don’t want him, you’d better give him 
the air.” 

“ Oh, la, la! ” Katherine had retorted. 

“ Beside,” Angela had added, then, “ people are 
really beginning to talk.” 

“ I don’t care what people say! ” the super-girl had 
retorted scornfully. But she did. Everybody does. 


82 


THE MOULD 


All this was in her mind now as she waited for 
Babette to return and dress her. 

It was reflected in the frown with which, forty 
minutes later, she greeted Baldie. 

Baldie was never more obviously and pathetically 
unaware that his day was done, than when she entered 
her beautiful blue and old ivory reception-room. His 
insensitiveness to the chill fact was patent all the w r ay 
from the cheerful upstanding bristle of his short- 
cropped sandy hair down to the cheerful red gloss of 
his blunt-toed cordovans. It was obvious in the cheer¬ 
ful loud check of his suit and the amazing futuristic 
color-revel of his four-dollar scarf. It was obvious in 
the cheerful way in which he was drumming on the 
great orange jar which struck the harmonic note in the 
midst of the blue and ivory melody. It was obvious 
in his blithe, “ Hello! Only forty minutes! Some 
little speedster, aren’t you, Kat?” 

Katherine vouchsafed a grumpy monosyllable in re¬ 
sponse. 

“ What’s the matter?” asked Baldie, frankly. 

“ Oh—nothing. Just bored—as usual.” 

Baldie looked at her commiseratingly and wagged 
his head. 

“ Must be an awful affliction,” he murmured, irri¬ 
tatingly. 

Baldie was never bored. Whatever he was doing 
was invariably the most absorbing and interesting oc¬ 
cupation in the world, whether it was getting up a 
minstrel show, going out to practice with a scrub team, 
leading a cheering-section at the Big Game, making 


BORED 


83 


fudge in a girl’s chafing-dish or speeding over the hills 
at fifty miles an hour. He had achieved the difficult 
feat of being an almost permanent Harvard student. 
It was like walking a tight-rope across a dizzy gorge. 
To flunk out would tumble him to the left hand; to 
pass successfully on to his degree would tumble him 
to the right; but the abyss was all one. Flunking or 
graduating meant one and the same fate; he would 
have to “ go to work.” But he had walked the tight¬ 
rope now successfully for four years and he saw no 
reason why he should not walk it for four years more. 
He was at present the oldest living Sophomore; and 
with care and good luck he hoped to put off the day 
of his (to change the metaphor) delivery into the 
hands of the Egyptians until his twenty-sixth year at 
least. What was the use of having a father who 
was a several-times-over millionaire if one had to 
sweat blood to earn a living like anyone else? But 
unfortunately Baldie’s father was of a different opin¬ 
ion, and was only awaiting the finish of his son’s 
“ education ” before putting him into the shoe-factory 
from which the Daggett millions had emanated. 

Work was a long way off, however, and Baldie 
believed in not crossing the bridge till he came to it. 
This morning he was fairly bubbling with high 
spirits. 

“ Well, what’s the matter with your ’phone ? ” he 
asked jocundly, in reply to Katherine’s explanation 
about her malady. “ Is it bored, too ? I been trying 
to get you ever since eleven o’clock.” 

“ I told them to leave the receiver off the hook,” 


84 THE MOULD 

said Katherine, coldly. “ I was tired of hearing it 

• yy 

ring. 

“ Fine idea! ” commented Baldie, ironically. “ Well, 
anyway, I cut psych, and ran over to tell you there’s 
a skating-party on for to-night out at the Country 
Club rink—Braeburn—and a big crowd going. Banish 
dull care, my child, and prepare to enjoy life once 
more! ” 

“ Much I feel like a skating-carnival! ” retorted 
Katherine, disdainfully. 

“ Well, you’ll feel less like staying at home,” 
prophesied Baldie, sagaciously. He knew his Kath¬ 
erine pretty well, after four years. “ I’ll be round with 
the little buzz-wagon about seven. Wanta get out 
there before the ice gets all cut up.” 

“ Well, I won’t promise,” said Katherine, discourag- 
ingly. 

“ Oh, you needn’t promise! ” retorted Baldie, with a 
friendly wink. “ Well, ta-ta for now. Gotta beat it. 
This is my last cut this semester. See you to-night.” 

“ Mavbe.” 

“ Dress warm! ” And Baldie treated her to a con¬ 
fident grin, and, with a wave of the hand, bolted in¬ 
formally out of the blue-and-ivory reception-room and 
out of the villa. Through a window, Katherine 
watched him negotiate her elegant little walled terraces 
at a run, vault into the robin’s-egg blue roadster which 
had superseded the vermilion one, throw in the clutch, 
and jump forward toward his academic responsi¬ 
bilities. 

“ He’s very sure of me! ” muttered Katherine, 


BORED 


85 


cynically, to herself. Nevertheless, meeting Mrs. 
Jordane in the hall, she announced, “ Well have dinner 
early to-night—six o’clock. I’m going out at seven.” 

“ Very well, Miss Katherine,” said Mrs. Jordane. 


CHAPTER V 


a philosopher’s smile 

(I) 

On Ash-Wednesday, Katherine gave Mrs. Jordane 
a vacation-with-pay, and migrated, bag and baggage, 
to Angela's home in Back Bay, where she had agreed 
to spend the Lenten season. She was welcoming the 
change. She was growing dreadfully tired of living 
in the pink-and-gray villa and dispensing the pink-and- 
gray villa’s aimless hospitality. It would be a relief 
to subside quietly into the bosom of a family for a 
while. Angela’s parents were very devout, though 
somewhat divided between Epicopalianism (high 
church) and Christian Science. They observed all the 
Lenten renunciations with uncompromising conven¬ 
tionality. Katherine’s stay under their roof would 
perforce be a forty days’ withdrawal from cigarettes, 
flirtation, and all other pleasant vanities of the world, 
but the idea appealed to her. For she was bored, 
worse bored every day, with everything that filled her 
life. 

Angela herself opened the front door for her guest 
as the latter alighted from her taxicab and directed the 
disposal of her steamer-trunk. 

“ Oh, I’m so glad you’re going to be here forty whole 
days, Kitty! ” her friend cried, squeezing her arm 

86 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


87 


affectionately as they walked up-stairs side by side. 
“And, oh, Kitty, what do you think? Paul is here! ” 

“Paul!” Katherine felt, for some unaccountable 
reason, a little interruption of her heart-beat: as if— 
preposterous idea!—the news contained some personal 
significance for her. 

“ Not the ghost of a notion but what he was on the 
other side of the water!—Take off your coat and hat, 
Kitty-” 

In the library, Mrs. Grayson, a small pale woman— 
“ a pocket-edition of Angela,” Baldie called her— 
greeted Katherine with a habitual air of absent- 
mindedness. 

“And Katherine,” she said, “ let me introduce my 
son, Paul.” 

Katherine found herself extending her hand to a 
rather small well-fed-looking young man. 

“ To my enchantment! ” murmured the young man, 
with an un-American accent, taking the hand, and bow¬ 
ing over it, with an air that suggested he was on the 
point of actually kissing it. That was the though*: 
that flashed through Katherine’s head, and, to hei 
horror, the super-girl found herself snatching away 
her hand (which had never been kissed, either in 
public or private) and crimsoning to the roots of her 
hair. 

Angela made it worse. She laughed and said, 
“ Paolo, you have made Katherine blush! ” 

The young man looked amused. He was very 
dramatic. “ I am too much the Italian! ” he mur¬ 
mured, half-insolently, half-apologetically. “ You 



88 


THE MOULD 


must forgive me, my dear Miss Howard. I forget 
that your American men-” 

‘‘American men are the kind we raise in America,” 
interposed a somewhat truculent voice, as Baldie, 
whom Katherine had not even seen when she entered 
the room, stepped up. “ We leave dagos to Italy. 
Hello, Kat! ” 

Katherine was furious at the insignificant little Paul 
for making her ridiculous; at the same time, far 
from being grateful to Baldie for her rescue, she 
was ashamed of him and of it. She saw him, for 
the first time, through eyes such as this Paolo’s, and 
perceived all his uncouthness, his lack of polish and 
finesse. 

Paolo did not look like an American. His olive 
skin, his bold, black eyes, his amorous mouth with the 
little black moustache on the upper lip, his slim hands, 
his sleek black hair, made him a surprising alien in 
the bosom of his ultra-American family. He had not, 
too, at thirty, the sober, settled, and yet boyish look 
which most American young men have. He had 
something volatile, something of the eternal faun, 
which made him look as though he would never out¬ 
grow his adolescence; and, at the same time, he had a 
very wise look, and bore an insolent manner, as though 
he had never had a bovhood. 

“ Well, Paul, my son-” Mr. Grayson, senior, 

entered the room. He was a portly, high-colored gen¬ 
tleman, big-voiced, prosperous-looking, pompous, and 
aggressively respectable. “ Rather a surprise you’ve 
given us, eh ? ” 




A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 89 

He did not speak as if it were a particularly pleas¬ 
ant surprise. 

Paul looked smaller and more volatile than ever, 
beside the large, solid, virtuous bulk of his father; and 
yet one seemed to see, after all, how the latter might 
have begotten such a son. 

“ Oh, a surprise, yes! ” 

Katherine, talking languidly with Baldie, heard 
every syllable of the lazy, impudent voice replying 
that the climate of Italy had become enervating- 

Mr. Grayson burst into a short, grim laugh. ** In 
other words, you’ve spent your allowance and had to 
beat it home ! ” 

Paul shrugged his shoulders, and began speaking in 
Italian, which Mr. Grayson apparently understood. 

When the young man spoke English with his langour- 
ous accent, he sounded affected; but, curiously enough, 
when he began speaking Italian, he became natural. 
The mellow tone of his voice, the liquid syllables, the 
quick accompanying gestures of his slim pale hands, 
the animation of his whole body, recreated him. Kath¬ 
erine saw suddenly his charm for Beatrice. She saw, 
too, the source of his insolence. He was confident of 
attracting women without effort—even against a 
sporting handicap of deliberate effrontery. Experi¬ 
ence had been kind to him. 

Well—he should see that there was one young 
woman for whom he had no charm. Katherine de¬ 
voted herself, during dinner and throughout the even¬ 
ing, conspicuously to Baldie. 

Paolo seemed to be impressed by the fact that Kath- 



90 


THE MOULD 


erine was a disdainful young woman (not sufficiently 
good-looking to afford to be disdainful, either) and 
Baldie Daggett’s exclusive property. Paolo had no 
use for other men’s property. He cast a few indif¬ 
ferent glances over the young woman who was satis¬ 
fied to be the property of an uncouth fellow like Dag¬ 
gett, and, serenely, he left Baldie in possession. 

At least, this was the impression that Katherine got. 

She was aware that she disliked Paolo inordinately, 
and that she had never seen a man who seemed to her 
so insignificant, or so provokingly unaware of his in¬ 
significance. 

She resolved to make him aware of it. 

( 2 ) 

“ Why am I so repulsive to you ? ” asked Paolo, 
sotto voce, as he encountered Katherine on the stair¬ 
case, one afternoon a fortnight or so later. 

“ You’re not repulsive to me,” replied Katherine, 
frowning as she twitched the gossamer fabric of her 
sleeve from his light grasp. “ Please don’t flat¬ 
ter yourself! ” 

“ Why then, do you always run away when I come 
near you ? ” he urged. 

“ How absurd! Pm sure I don’t! ” retorted Kath¬ 
erine, though she knew she did. Her two weeks un¬ 
der the same roof with this objectionable young man 
had been one perpetual flight from him. It was the 
way she was showing him his insignificance. 

“ You’re never alone with me for an instant- 99 

began Paolo, rolling his eyes up at her—though she 



A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 91 

could not really be sure that secretly he was not laugh¬ 
ing at her. 

“ I'm sorry/' she interrupted, brusquely. “ I’m 
afraid I really can’t stop to discuss it now. Baldie 
Daggett is waiting for me down-stairs." 

“That cub!" ejaculated Paolo, with annoyance. 
“ That overgrown bread-and-butter baby! ” 

“ Bread and butter’s not such a bad diet in com¬ 
parison with ’’—she dropped him a slightly mocking 
glance —“ caviare! " 

Paolo suppressed a flattered smile. He liked being 
compared to caviare. “ A good diet—bread and but¬ 
ter," he assented, gravely. “ But—just a trifle mo¬ 
notonous ?" 

Katherine, in her turn, suppressed a smile. Baldie 
had been, of late, very monotonous. “ Oh," she par¬ 
ried, “ what isn’t monotonous ? " 

A kindly smile now played openly across Paolo’s 
features. He perceived so well Katherine’s malady, 
and her own indignant ignorance of it. Indulgently, 
he knew its cause, and (though he was so young) its 
cure. 

“ Ah, Katherine, Katherine! " he said. He stepped 
up onto the step beside her. His look, searching her 
kindly, brought the blood to her cheeks. Now was the 
time to escape from him: instinct warned her. Yet 
she could not help but linger a moment. Though there 
was something about this young man which made her 
feel insecure, she was perfectly safe, there on the open 
staircase, with Angela and Harold Fifield (Angela’s 
latest sentimental acquisition, a theological student, up 


92 


THE MOULD 


from Hartford for the week-end) in the music-room 
above, and Baldie in the drawing-room below. Be¬ 
sides, she could get away at any moment just as well 
as now. In all their encounters, Paolo had always, 
serenely, allowed her to escape. He had never tried 
to detain her. . . . That, indeed, was part of the 

trouble. Flight, always successful because there is no 
pursuit, finally becomes not only tame, but rather 
ridiculous. And Katherine felt a growing curiosity 
to know what would happen if she should not flee. 
Just what would this insignificant little Don Juan do? 
. . . In fact, it has to be confessed that in Kath¬ 

erine’s consciousness, as she stood on the step, scorn¬ 
ing to shrink from Paolo, a praiseworthy state of ap¬ 
prehension found itself vieing with a somewhat repre¬ 
hensible state of anticipation. She did not wish any¬ 
thing unseemly to happen, and yet- In short, 

Katherine was distinctly in the state of mind referred 
to in the Turkish proverb: She was idle, and she was 
tempting the devil. . . . 

Nothing particularly unseemly happened. Paolo 
reached across in front of Katherine, and laid a hand, 
gently, respectfully, on her hand which lay on the 
balustrade. No harm in that. His arm did not touch 
her; his hand barely pressed hers, and with an almost 
fatherly kindliness. The harm, apparently, was all in 
Katherine. For Katherine was acutely conscious of 
Paolo’s arm, stretched across her, so near and yet not 
touching; and of Paolo’s hand, so innocent and so 
disturbing. She would not for worlds have let him 
see that it disturbed her. 



A PHILOSOPHER'S SMILE 


93 


But he saw it. 

“ What is the matter, Katherine? ” he asked gently. 
His eyes were bent steadily upon her. He seemed im¬ 
mensely old and wise and tolerant of the frailty of our 
human clay. 

Katherine made no answer. She could not. She 
was petrified by some new, terrifying sensation which 
completely occupied her. 

Paolo apparently recognized the moment. He be¬ 
gan speaking to her in Italian. She heard without 
listening. It seemed as if her body listened and un¬ 
derstood ; the better that the foreign words were un¬ 
intelligible to her. 

And suddenly she forgot his hand on hers, and her 
eyes lifted and fastened on his face. He was again 
speaking in English, and he was saying strange things, 
incredible things to her. 

“—The meaning of the terror and the thrill. No 
one has ever taught you. Katherine, has anyone ? ” 

As he asked the impermissible question, there was 
something a little comical in the way Paolo's voice, so 
eager, sank as if it were ashamed of itself in spite of 
him; and in the way his would-be-bold eyes, in spite 
of him, dropped a little sheepishly under Katherine’s 
steady, questioning gaze. 

Something deep within her, a finer, more dignified 
Katherine than she had known existed, spoke unex¬ 
pectedly. 

“ No,” this Katherine replied drily. “ And I do not 
care to learn.” She pulled her hand abruptly from 
beneath his. 


94 


THE MOULD 


Paolo raised his eyes. The blood seemed to have 
ebbed from beneath his olive skin, leaving a curious 
pallor. “ No/’ he said, in a low tone. “ One sees 
that. You are beautifully—and wilfully—ignorant!” 
His curious pallor had become more pronounced. 
There was no shame in him now. Something had 
come upon him, swiftly and suddenly, which anni¬ 
hilated shame. 

Yet he did not seek to detain her. When she made 
a motion to pass him without answer, he stood aside 
and let her pass. 

She ran swiftly down-stairs. She hated Paolo 
wildly and extravagantly. Hated him for his power 
over her; and for his knowledge of it; and especially 
for his indifference to it. 

Paolo, looking down on her from above, with the 
color flooding back under his olive skin, followed her 
with a slight, wise smile: He was old for his age, was 
Paolo. The conquering hero knew his conquest. Her 
hand quiescent under his; her being leaping to meet 
his at the hand. This was the true conquest. 

He went to his room and took out a small, leather- 
bound diary which he had called, rather poetically, 
“ A Philosopher’s Smile,” and which sometime he 
meant to have published. In it he now wrote: 

“ When a woman’s hand has been to a man’s hand 
as hers to mine, all is over. The rest—or whether 
there shall be any ‘ rest ’—is a mere matter of cir¬ 
cumstances. The inevitable struggle of the magnetic 
pair, their holding back from each other, are futile; 
pathetic; doomed to failure unless circumstances re- 



A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


95 


inforce them. And when Dido and ^Eneas hunt to¬ 
gether, the thunder-storm and the cave are seldom 
lacking. . . 

He closed the book, and sat thinking; thinking and 
smiling. How well he knew them—Women! He saw 
this Katherine against a crowded, colorful, kaleido¬ 
scopic background. The background interpreted her. 
He smiled. 

By and by he heard the honking of a horn in the 
street below. He went to his window and looked 
down. Katherine was just climbing into Baldie Dag¬ 
gett’s robin’s-egg roadster, beside Baldie. They were 
all in fur, both of them. Paolo smiled. How bored 
she would be! 

Then his smile faded. “ Confound it! ” he mut¬ 
tered. 


(3) 

Katherine, though naturally she had not let Paolo 
know it, really was dreadfully bored at the prospect 
of an afternoon’s tete-a-tete with Baldie. Caviare 
canape, to develop Katherine’s clever epigram beyond 
what she intended, really spoils a healthy appetite for 
plain bread and butter. 

“ Hello, Kat! ” Baldie looked more bread-and-but- 
terish than ever when she entered the drawing-room. 

Paolo, it is true, was neither handsome nor of a 
godlike stature, but he conveyed an effect, often ob¬ 
servable in women, but rarely in men, of being every¬ 
thing desirable. To possess it, one must have no 
salient features: an aggressive chin ruins it; a foot- 


96 


THE MOULD 


ball neck is fatal. Some healthy female natures prefer 
the rugged honest dominance that goes with the typical 
athletic American physique, just as the sturdy German 
prefers his beer to absinthe. Yet there are some na¬ 
tures to whom the subtler drink is irresistible. 

Baldie was attired in a marvelous new outfit in the 
latest mode and culminating in a remarkable pair of 
pumpkin-colored boots. His hiked-up trousers-legs 
(both of which stuck in that position upon his sturdy 
calves when he rose to show his deference to Kath¬ 
erine, instead of descending gently of their own ac¬ 
cord, as trousers-legs should do) displayed two inches 
of flesh-colored socks above his boot-tops—socks of a 
flesh-color so realistic as, at first glance, to startle and 
alarm. 

“ Baldie! What dreadful boots! ” cried Katherine, 
by way of polite greeting. She didn’t mention the 
socks, but her scathing glance included them. 

A vision of Paolo in his dark, unobtrusive attire, 
was vividly before her. It was impossible to imagine 
Paolo in pumpkin-colored boots and flesh-colored hose. 
The very idea of the latter made the super-girl blush, 
as if her imagination had done an impermissible thing. 

“Yes, ain’t they?” agreed Baldie cheerfully. 

u ‘ Ain’t ’! ” How crude he was; how clownish ! 
“ Baldie, why will you ? ” remonstrated Katherine, 
vexedly. If only Paolo were not able to despise 
Baldie, how much more useful to her the latter would 
be! 

“ I like * ain’t,’ ” protested Baldie. “ It’s a nice, 
handy, democratic word.” 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 97 

" Oh, of course, if you want people to think you’re 
a common, ignorant fellow-” 

Baldie paled slightly under the grin. The forward 
thrust of a bulldog jaw marred the usual good-na¬ 
tured roundness of his countenance. 

“ Say, Kat,” he said, “ you haven’t got much use for 
me lately, have you? Don’t like much of anything 
about me, do you ? ” 

Katherine took warning. After all, she did not 
want to quarrel with Baldie. 

“ I like lots of things about you, Baldie,” she said 
gravely, “ but I don’t like your faults.” 

Baldie looked at her rather queerly. “ Well, is my 
car one of ’em?” he inquired. “Because I brought 
it ’round. Thought maybe you’d like to go out for a 
little spin.” 

“Oh, fine! I’d love to!” cried Katherine, jump¬ 
ing up. Paolo had no car; and he could not blink the 
fact that this was a very decided asset of Baldie’s. 

“ Bundle up now. It’s cold as Sam Hill,” warned 
Baldie. 

He surveyed her critically w T hen she came down in 
her fur coat and small toque. 

“ How about your ears ? That little bonnet is all 
right for looks, but how about her acts? It’s going 
to be strictly handsome is as handsome does, to-day,” 
warned Baldie. 

“ Oh, my ears will be all right,” replied Katherine, 
carelessly. “ Come on, let’s go! ” 

“ Whoa, here! ” replied Baldie, taking her by the 
“ Haven’t you got anything warmer than that ? ” 


arm. 



98 


THE MOULD 


Katherine pulled away from him. 

“ May I inquire who gave you any right to dictate 
what I shall wear ? ” she demanded pettishly. 

“ Oh, all right,” retorted Baldie, thrusting his hands 
deep into his trousers’ pockets. “ Only you can’t go 
driving with me with nothing warmer than that on 
your head. A pair of frozen ears are no joke.” 

He strolled about the Graysons’ drawing-room, 
whistling. 

Katherine looked wrathfully at his back. But she 
wanted very badly to go automobiling. She wanted 
to go so that Paolo, instead of pitying her for having 
to spend an afternoon in the drawing-room with 
Baldie, would have to sit at home gnawing his mous¬ 
tache (figuratively speaking) because he could not 
take any fair lady out himself. Katherine went up¬ 
stairs and got a fur cap which she disliked intensely, 
and came down with it on. 

She had not seen Paolo, so, before she got into the 
car, she leaned over the door, and pretending a playful 
mood, made the horn cough thrice. Paolo’s room was 
in the front of the house, next the pink guest-room, 
and Paolo, she knew, would look out of the window 
when the horn honked, and if he did not already know 
that Baldie was taking her out, he would know it then. 

( 4 ) 

Once on the boulevard, Katherine rather forgot 
Baldie’s uncouthness. A big ’possum coat and cap 
were becoming to Baldie; and gauntlet gloves and a 
steering-wheel suited his square sturdy hands. 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


99 


He was a good driver, too. That is, he drove to 
Katherine’s taste. His mild blue eyes never took 
themselves from the road, nor his hands from the 
wheel; but he made speed recklessly. His career 
was dotted with fines like a country-road with mile¬ 
stones. 

To-day, however, he was more than observing the 
speed-limit. Katherine glanced sidewise at him once 
or twice, wondering what was the trouble. 

As they approached the Reservoir, Baldie slowed 
down still more. A very red nose and one eye were 
all that Katherine could see of his profile; but that 
one eye looked thoughtful. 

“ All right, Baldie,” she said resignedly, “ out with 
it! What’s the trouble ? ” 

“ Just thinking,” laughed Baldie ruefully. “ That’s 
trouble for little Archibald! ” 

“ I should say so! ” agreed Katherine, crisply. 
“ But what were you thinking about ? ” 

“ About you.” 

“ You’re not going to propose, are you ? ” inquired 
Katherine suspiciously. 

Baldie laughed, but with some constraint. 

“ I was sort of thinking I might propose being a 
brother to you,” he hazarded. 

“ Thanks awfully,” retorted Katherine. “ But why 
this sudden ardor to become a relative of mine? ” 

“ Oh—no reason—no reason! ” stammered Baldie, 
hastily. Katherine surveyed him keenly. What was 
the matter with him? What was he trying to say, or 
do? 



100 THE MOULD 

“ For goodness* sake, Baldie, out with it! ” she ex¬ 
claimed, pettishly. 

“ Why, any girl needs a brother at times—to—sort 
of put her wise ”—Baldie floundered sadly, but kept 
pluckily on, “ about things—about—fellows, and the 

way they look at things-” 

“ Oh.” 

“ There are fellows that it’s a darn sight better for a 
girl not to see too much of.” 

“ Indeed. How intensely interesting! ” 

Under the lash of Katherine’s sarcastic emphasis, 
the little blue car jumped forward; then slowed again 
with a jerk. 

“ Well,” said Baldie, soberly, “ I was wishing you 
had a brother for just about fifteen minutes to tell you 
some things about this Paul Grayson-” 

“ And as I haven’t,” interrupted Katherine, speaking 
slowly and cuttingly, “ you would be willing to serve 
in that capacity. I see! Well, Baldie, you are the last 
fellow in the world that I would have imagined would 
try to queer another man with a girl, behind his back! ” 

Baldie’s hands tightened on the steering-wheel. He 
said nothing. 

“ Besides,” added Katherine, with an oblique glance 
at him, “ in this case, from what I have heard,” 
(Angela was a great scandal-monger) “ I should say 
it might be an instance of the pot calling the kettle 
black! ” 

The blue car leaped forward. The speed was 
suicidal. Katherine, for the first time in her life, was 
thrilled with a sensation akin to fear. She was 




A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 101 

amazed, and, yes, frightened. She had never sus¬ 
pected the temper behind those mild blue eyes! 

But apparently it was not Baldie’s intention to 
plunge himself and her precipitately into the next 
world via a ditch or a wall. As a traffic officer loomed 
up in the distance, he slowed to a safer rate; but all 
the way into town they ran fast enough to preclude 
conversation. The keen wind stung their eyelids and 
stiffened their lips. Katherine was more than glad 
that she had on the sturdy fur cap instead of the dainty 
toque with its specious fur-bandings. 

But she would not have admitted it for worlds. . . . 

At the Graysons’ door, Baldie said good-bye to 
Katherine, gloomily. 

No, he would not come in. Must run along. 

“ Thank you for a pleasant ride,” said Katherine, 
with intense formality. 

“Thank you!” retorted Baldie, looking, Katherine 
thought, like a big sulky, bread-and-butter baby. 

He certainly, like a big, sulky baby, needed dis¬ 
ciplining. By way of discipline, Katherine added 
loftily, as she turned away to push the bell, “ And, by 
the way, Baldie, you’d better forget that big brother 
stuff. When I need a big brother, I’ll let you know.” 

The only reply Baldie made was under his breath, 
and sounded suspiciously as if it were not suitable for 
a lady’s ears. He turned away, strode down the steps 
and across the sidewalk, jumped into the little blue 
car, and threw in the clutch with a venomous jerk. 

Katherine entered the house hoping that Paolo might 
be in the front hall to see her come in. But he 


102 THE MOULD 

was not. He was shut up in his room with Bernard 
Shaw. 


(5) 

He did not come down for dinner. 

Mr. Grayson asked for him. 

Angela explained: “ He’s up in his room. He won’t 
come down.” 

“ What’s the matter ? He isn’t sick, is he ? ” in¬ 
quired Mrs. Grayson, laying down her napkin in alarm. 
Angela, though her second child, had grown up; but 
Paolo was still her darling baby. 

“ Oh, no, Mother! Don’t go up! ” said Angela. 
“ He won’t want to be fussed over. I’ll take him up 
something after dinner.” 

“ No,” commanded Mr. Grayson sternly. Mrs. 
Grayson and Angela looked up in surprise. “ If he 
wants anything to eat he can come down. It’s time 
he got over that baby habit of his. You women spoil 
him. Let him sulk it out for once.” 

“Very well, Father,” replied Angela, meekly; “I 
just thought-” 

“ I know what he’s in the sulks about,” interrupted 
Mr. Grayson irately. “ It’s this auto business. He’s 
got to learn that he can’t always have what he wants. 
. . . The trouble is, Paul thinks his father is a 

large-sized, gilt-edged edition of a J. D. Rockefeller; 
and he may just as well be disillusioned now as later. 
Let him sulk it out! ” 

“ Oh, does Paul want you to buy him a car, Fa¬ 
ther ? ” inquired Angela, with interest. 



A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 103 

Katherine smiled slightly to herself, agreeably 
flattered; for she thought she knew why Paolo was so 
especially anxious to have a car of his own. 

“ Mercy 1 ” began Mrs. Grayson, in a nervous flutter, 
“ I should expect Paolo to smash up the first 
time-” 

“ Well, you don’t any of you need to worry,” inter¬ 
rupted Mr. Grayson grimly, “ for Pm not going to 
buy him one.” 

“ But when Paolo wants a thing,” retorted Angela 
sweetly, “ you may be sure he’ll get it by hook or 
crook. Even if he has to steal it.” 

The innocent prophecy sounded, to Katherine, al¬ 
most sinister. 


( 6 ) 

The following day there was a midwinter blizzard, 
out of season. The stinging flakes drove whirling and 
smacking against the window-panes and plastered 
them with snow. Outside through the storm could 
be seen the white drifts piling waist-high, and bare 
patches of ground across which the fine sleet drove in 
sheets. Now and then a solitary pedestrian struggled 
by, shielding his head with one arm and fending for¬ 
ward with the other as if beating his way through the 
thickness of the wind. Occasionally a market-wagon, 
the horse with its nose at its knees, plowed through the 
drifts. Neither Mr. Grayson nor Paolo went out. 
There were fires in all the fireplaces. Within the 
house there was a drowsy atmosphere of coziness, 
warmth, and security. 



104 


THE MOULD 


Katherine had settled herself before the library fire 
with a light—very light—novel. 

She was far from being in a mood for reading. She 
turned the pages listlessly, or forgot to turn them at 
all, while she half-dreamed, half-dozed in the com¬ 
fortable chair and wished pettishly that there was 
something exciting to do. Paolo was sitting in an¬ 
other chair somewhat back of her, with his Bernard 
Shaw. He was intent upon the book. He held it 
between his face and the sight of Katherine. Angela 
was seated on the other side of the hearth, embroider¬ 
ing a camisole for her Hope-Chest. 

The clock ticked monotonously on the mantel. It 
was a handsome clock in a glass dome, and it would 
tick monotonously for eight days without being wound. 
Angela applied all her faculties to the placing of 
French knots at proper intervals. Paolo was absorbed 
in his book. Katherine fluttered the leaves of hers 
and yawned. 

After some time Angela, with a glance at the clock, 
rose hurriedly, and laying down her work, left the 
room. 

Simultaneously, as if they had been worked by the 
same spring, Paul lowered his book and looked at 
Katherine, and Katherine swung around in her chair 
toward him. 

“ IVe something to say to you.” He spoke rapidly. 
“ I take this opportunity because I shall perhaps have 
no other. Hai ragione, my friend: you are right. I 
have pursued you in an ungentlemanly manner.” He 
lifted, absent-mindedly, the fringed edge of her skirt 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


105 


an inch or so with the toe of his boot, and again, 
absent-mindedly, let it fall. “ You have showed me 
that fact. Perhaps in no too gentle manner, but let 
that pass. I shall pursue you no longer. You are 
cold. You are—an American. It is all said. The 
remainder of your visit shall be as undisturbed by my 
unwelcome solicitations as you could wish. After all, 
we may be glad that nothing-” 

Angela’s step was heard. She reentered the room. 
Paolo’s book was up before his face. Katherine was 
absorbed in her novel. 

“ There! ” exclaimed Angela in vexation as she was 
about to seat herself, “ if I didn’t go ’way up-stairs— 
and then forgot-” She was gone again. 

The books were down. Katherine was turned to 
hear the end of the sentence. 

“—that nothing has happened which we might have 
had to regret/’ 

“ Well, it can wait. I shan’t go up again on pur¬ 
pose ! ” Angela returned and sat down. Her com¬ 
panions’ positions had apparently not changed. Paolo’s 
book was up before his face. Katherine was absorbed 
in her novel. 

“You are the most lifeless-looking people!” ex¬ 
claimed Angela. She picked up her embroidery. 


( 7 ) 

The girls came down tardily to dinner that evening. 
Angela’s eyelids and nose were red and swollen. 
Katherine looked perturbed. 




106 


THE MOULD 


“Why, dear child, what is the matter? ” demanded 
Mrs. Grayson. 

“ Miss Howard’s been in one of her iconoclastic 
moods,” guessed Paolo carelessly. “ She has been 
smashing Angela’s household gods; isn’t that it, Miss 
Howard? ” 

Katherine flushed. 

“And the sight of all the little tin gods lying with 
their little heads and legs knocked off reduced our 
tender-hearted Angellina to tears,” continued Paolo 
mildly. “ That’s what it is to keep one’s Lares and 
Penates where people can get at them! ” 

Katherine, her eyes bent on her plate, looked more 
and more ill at ease. Angela’s face mirrored her 
friend’s discomfort. 

“ What was it this time, Miss Howard ? ” Paolo 
continued, fully aware of her discomfort. “ Freud? ” 

Katherine turned red. 

“ It was really I that started it,” protested Angela. 
“ I was speaking of—that is, something brought up the 
subject of marriage and got us going; and before we 
stopped I really had begun to feel as if marriage were 
a horrid whited sepulchre.” 

“ Full of awful creepy crawly things hidden in the 
dark—and our Angy never was too brave! ” nodded 
Paolo, much amused. 

“And as if,” continued Angela tearfully, “ love and 
all that sort of thing were a big hideous practical joke 
on us. And, as Paolo says, it frightened me. It is so 
terrifying to think how easily all the meaning and 
dignity could go out of life! . . . And Kitty be- 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


107 


lieves it, and she doesn’t care. And when she says 
those awful materialistic modern things about people’s 
suppressed desires and self-deceptions, and things, it 
almost convinces you. That’s what scares me: it’s the 
self-deception! Supposing she’s right, and it’s all a 
cruel practical joke—all our aspirations, and ideals, 
and-” 

“ Mercy! ” broke in Mrs. Grayson. “ Angela, stop 
it! I won’t have you giving us all indigestion with 
Katherine’s cynicism! ” 

“ Mamma, you don’t understand,” put in Paolo 
smoothly, in great delight. “ Miss Howard has been 
working out a philosophy of life—from experience. 
Just as you—from the systematic contradiction of ex¬ 
perience—are trying to work out yours. Behold a 
fellow pilgrim to the shrine of truth! You, my dear 
mother, are striving to cast off the bonds of material¬ 
ism. (And, incidentally, let me remark that a good 
Christian Scientist should hardly mention an affliction 
so non-existent as indigestion!) You fancy that you 
are getting at a religion: it is only a philosophy; and 
not a new one at that. Miss Howard has undertaken 
the somewhat less difficult task of discarding idealism. 
To a pragmatist, one is as profitless and interesting an 
effort as the other. You wish to reduce the Universe 
to a formula—poor little students of life! ” He waved 
his hand airily; a dreamy look came into his black 
eyes; a sort of film settled over them. “ Be, my 
friends, like me—an eclectic. Maintain a mind open 
to the conviction of the moment. Our Angy, just be¬ 
cause she is in love with Harold, does not want to 



108 


THE MOULD 


think that when Harry, trembling in mute and holy 
adoration, touches her hand, and the little thrills run 
up her arm and prickle down her spine-” 

“ Paolo, you are unbearable! ” cried Angela hotly, 
jumping up and running out of the room. 

“ Paolo, that was really too bad! ” protested Mrs. 
Grayson nervously, eyeing a nicely broiled squab 
couchant on a circle of buttered toast which had just 
been set before her. 

“ But Mother, it’s true! ” persisted Paolo, aggrieved. 
“ Our Angy, because she has thrills when Harold 
touches her, wishes to disguise from herself that the 
thrills are a manifestation of a quite commonplace 
instinct which also governs the actions, periodically, of 
pussy-cats and guinea-piggesses and cows and turtle- 
dovesses and all the rest of Angy’s half of creation. 
Therefore she constructs a new heaven and a new 
earth—minus earth. In which Harold and she are 
beings compact all of light and romantic electricity, I 
presume. How mad! How utterly mad! ” Paolo 
smiled compassionately, “ Sometime, after they have 
been married five years and their romance stops and 
their babies continue-” 

“ Paolo! ” cried Mrs. Grayson scandalized. 

‘‘Mother, weren’t we all babies once?” protested 
Paolo, unabashed. " Sometime, when, as I was say¬ 
ing -” 

“ You don’t need to repeat it! ” interrupted Mrs. 
Grayson hurriedly. 

“ Well, then, when that inevitable moment arrives, 
Angela’s world of light and romantic electricity will 





A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


109 


be shattered about her ears. It is a tragedy.” He 
mused with a dreamy smile. “And then—poor 
Harold! He is so virtuous; so awfully, awfully, im¬ 
practicably virtuous.” 

There was a pause. Mrs. Grayson ate with dignity. 

“ This is where,” continued Paolo, “ your social 
organization in this country is betrayed to the divorce- 
court : it blinks at naked facts. It puts a pink paper 
petticoat on primitive forces before it introduces them 
to your daughters. Your spoiled American girls are 
brought up to suppose that matrimony is all roses and 
whipped cream. The French Madame expects to be 
her husband's business partner; the German Frau ex¬ 
pects to be his housekeeper. Your girls are not in¬ 
telligent enough to be his business partner; they scorn 
to be his housekeeper; and yet—extraordinary blind¬ 
ness—they do not trouble themselves to be his mis¬ 
tress. So the independent wage-earner whose busi¬ 
ness is to maintain an illusion of desirability and to 
ally herself with primitive instincts that, for her, never 
had petticoats on, gets the advantage which she would 
never in nature have: she realizes that you do not get 
something for nothing in this old world. Then we 
have revelations, tears and hysterics, the roses and 
cream all upset, broken crockery, the divorce-court, 
and ‘ another American scandal.’ And I tell you this 
abnormal social condition comes back to your perni¬ 
cious idealism: the theory of romantic love, pro¬ 
pounded in your saccharine American novels—a sort 
of bolt of psycho-electricity, which strikes the one man 
at the sight of the one woman of all the world, and thus 


110 


TEE MOULD 


places him under an obligation to provide a permanent 
meal-ticket for her henceforth, with no question of 
value received!—Schopenhauer, my dear mother, is 
the old fellow you and Angela need to read on that! 
How old Dame Nature must laugh at us! Trying al¬ 
ways to hide the truth about ourselves under a silly 
fig-leaf! As if She cares- ” 

“ Paolo,” said Mrs. Grayson sharply, “ that's 
enough. Eat your dinner. Katherine, the less you 
think about such things the better it will be for you. 
I don't like you to talk so to Angela.” 

They ate in silence. Katherine was scarlet. Angela, 
who had stolen back to her broiled squab, of which 
she was very fond, dared not raise her eyes from her 
plate. Paolo preserved an amused and meditative air 
of detachment. Through it all, Mr. Grayson had been 
eating, wrapped in a brown study. 

With the coming of the finger-bowls, he awoke sud¬ 
denly, almost ludicrously oblivious to all that had 
passed, and remarked, “ By the way, Katherine, that 
copper stock of yours is up fifteen points above where 
you bought it. You can sell it in a month or more at 
a profit of twenty-five.” 


( 8 ) 

This opening of a brand new topic of conversation 
was a relief to everybody. 

“ Three cheers! ” cried Katherine. “ Then I shall 
have enough money to buy a car! ” 

" Do you want a car, too? ” asked Paolo, turning to 
her with some interest. 



A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


111 


“ Yes,” she answered. “ Something to get on with! 
Something that goes faster, faster, faster, and needs 
never stop! ” 

“A long way in a short time,” suggested Paolo. 

“ Just that. A long way in a short time.” 

“ Oh, Father, by the way, there’s a Vite-Turenne 
demonstrator going to bring out a new-model sedan 
next week for us to look at,” remarked Paul, in¬ 
genuously. 

“ What! ” ejaculated his father. “ There is! Who 
told him to ? ” 

“ Why,” replied Paolo, raising his eyes innocently 
to meet with disarming guilelessness his father’s 
astounded gaze, “ I happened to be down at the Vite- 
Turenne place yesterday and one of the salesmen said 
he’d like to come and take us out some afternoon for a 
little spin. I knew you wouldn’t mind. It won’t do 
any harm. You don’t have to buy one. He doesn’t 
expect that you will; but of course he likes to show 
his car.” 

“Well!” ejaculated his father, bursting into a big 
laugh. “ Have your way, my boy, have your way! 
Looking at an automobile is a long way from buying 
one! ” 

“ But Paolo will get what he wants yet,” murmured 
Angela, rippling with amusement. 

“ I wonder? ” mused Katherine to herself. Raising 
her eyes, they met Paolo’s. He nodded, slightly, 
smiling. 

As they left the dining-room, Paolo, who had offered 


112 


TEE MOULD 


his arm to Katherine, an unwonted civility on his part, 
detained her a moment. 

“ What did you mean ? ” he murmured. 

“ By what ? ” she asked. 

" 4 A long way in a short time * ? ” 

She flung back her head. She was gloriously con¬ 
scious of the gallery as represented by Paolo. “ To 
get all the fun that’s coming to you—eat, drink, and be 
merry; and then, before pay-time . . . skip 

out.” 

She stopped. Paolo was looking at her through 
narrowed, amused eyelids. He looked infinitely old, 
and tolerant, and wise. 

“ My dear child,” he said indulgently, " you’d jump 
heroically, and the water would get all in your eyes 
and ears and up your nose, and then someone would 
come and pull you out, and you’d be so wet and 
drippy;—and you’d feel so small! ” 

He paused. Katherine was flushed with angry 
mortification. 

“ I don’t mean,” he said kindly, “ that your idea is 
any the less heroic or sincere; it’s only that things like 
that don’t happen. ’Twouldn’t be your fault, but 
there’d be a fluke somewhere. It’s the people who 
don’t want to die that die. . . . And as for your 

Epicurean philosophy—oh, you child !— You haven't 
had any fun at all yet, and you talk as if you were 
about ready to * skip out ’! ” 

They had come now, slowly, into the hall; and as he 
released her, he said to her, “ The trouble, Katherine, 
with you is, you don’t know what you do want.” 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 113 

She moved hastily from him. " Where’s your letter, 
Angela ? ” she called. “I’m going to run out with 
mine to the letter-box/’ 

Paolo, who had started up-stairs, wheeled. “ No, 
indeed you’re not. It’s a fearfully bitter night. Here, 
give me the letters/’ 

“ No, no! ”—but she surrendered the letters to him 
—“ please don’t! They can wait till morning! ” 

“ Will you open the door for me so I won’t have to 
wait outside ? ” he asked. 

She followed him into the vestibule, closing the 
inner door behind her. 

“ You’re awfully good,” she said. 

“ I’m glad of a slight chance to reinstate myself in 
your favor,” he replied, looking up eagerly at her as 
she stood on the vestibule steps above him. 

“ I wish you wouldn’t go! ” she urged. “ Shouldn’t 
you have an overcoat ? ” 

“ No! ” He scorned it, and was gone. 

She descended the steps and stood by the great 
door, looking out at a narrow leaded side-window. 
It was a bitter night. A whistling wind swirled up 
the street, driving the few pedestrians in a whirl of 
skirts and coat-tails, and re-mounding the drifts with 
flurries of fine stinging sleet. She was touched at 
the thought of Paolo’s going out in such a night for 
her. 

He came dashing up the steps, puffing and blowing. 
She swung the door open. 

“ Whew! ” he ejaculated as he entered. “ Thanks! 
Dio , but it’s a night! ” 


114 


THE MOULD 


“Are you frozen? ” she asked breathlessly. At last 
Katherine knew what she wanted, and he knew—in 
his wisdom—that she knew it. 

“ Not now! ” he cried, exultantly. 

A moment she resisted fiercely; a moment she 
yielded awkwardly to his kiss. Then with a wild sob, 
she broke away from him and stumbled up the marble 
steps to the inner door. 

He sprang after her, and laid a controlling hand, 
which yet shook, on her arm. 

“ Adagio! ” he warned, in a low tone. “ Don’t go 
in till you’ve got yourself in hand! Remember, 
they’re in there ! ” 

Katherine swayed against the door, holding by the 
knob and resting her forehead against the glass. 

Silence. 

Suddenly she straightened. 

" We will go in now,” she said in a quiet voice. 
Their eyes flashed a look between them, ardent, burn¬ 
ing. She opened the door. They entered the music- 
room where Angela was seated at the piano playing 
the " Kiss Waltz.” 

“ Isn’t it cold out ? ” she asked, looking up as her 
brother and her guest entered the room. 

“ Yes, rather,” said Paolo. “ This heat’s all the 
more welcome. Ah, there’s a philosophical reflection 
for you! How should we appreciate warmth but for 
preceding cold ? ” 

“Uh? Uh?” grunted Mr. Grayson, waking up 
from a doze in his big chair. “ Where have you been. 
Paul?” 


A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


115 


“Just out to mail a letter for Miss Howard, sir,” 
replied his son respectfully. 

“Are you sure you shut both doors, Paolo?” 
fidgeted his mother. “ I seem to feel a draught.” 

He went dutifully to see. There could not have 
been a more attentive son and brother than Paolo that 
evening. The family appreciated his thoughtful be¬ 
havior, all the more that it was so rare. 

( 9 ) 

Before long, Mrs. Grayson went up-stairs to her 
room to figure household accounts, and Mr. Grayson 
got up heavily and took himself off to his den for 
another cigar. Katherine came over to the piano. 
Songs welled and bubbled in her. She was quite 
changed! It seemed to her as if everybody must 
notice it. In this less than an hour, she had become 
softened, sweet and womanly. She was moulded new 
—by a kiss! She looked over Angela’s shoulder and 
sang the song that Angela was playing. There were 
“ clasp me’s ” and “ kiss me’s ” in it, and the music, 
written irresponsibly to titivate the nervous systems of 
people who were willing to pay for thrills, vibrated 
in amorous “ clasp me’s ” and “ kiss me’s ” of melody. 
Katherine’s strong, young voice held a deeper thrill. 
It seemed as if Angela, herself so experienced in love, 
must hear it! But Angela was thinking of Harold 
while she played. 

Paolo drew to the piano, and posed opposite his 
guest, where he could catch the uplift of her lashes 
and flashing glance across at him. He leaned on his 


116 


THE MOULD 


elbow, watching her ardently, humming a second part 
in a mellow voice, magnetic, agreeable, a little false. 
How unsophisticated she was! He forgot himself 
slightly, and pushed his foot against hers. She gave 
him a frightened frown that intoxicated him. 

Angela was called to the telephone. 

They leaned toward each other, swift, tense. 

“ Now you will never run from me again,” he ex¬ 
claimed breathlessly. 

“ Why will I not ? ” she whispered. 

“ Because I have kissed you.” 

“ Oh, hush! ” 

“ Are you sorry ? ” 

“ No.” She raised her eyes and gave him look for 
look. She wished him to see that she understood per¬ 
fectly—and that she was glad. Glad! 

But it was not her mental reactions that Paolo was 
interested in. He was looking at the virginal blos¬ 
soming of her. With his greedy, downward gaze, he 
seemed to devour the bold shyness, the unadmitted 
timidity of the surrendered super-girl. 

In spite of herself, Katherine blushed, dropped her 
eyelids. 

“ But you must never-” she began uncertainly. 

He was not listening to her. His head was lifted! 

“ Be careful! ” he whispered with a quick change of 
tone. The Byronic Hero had become, abruptly, the 
small boy in the jam closet. “ Someone is coming! ” 

How quickly she was learning the love-game! 
When Angela entered, she was reading off the words 
of a comic ditty on the back sheet of the “Kiss 



A PHILOSOPHER’S SMILE 


117 


Waltz,” printed beneath the legend “ Try this over 
on your piano.” Paolo, with all his experience in 
snatching forbidden sweets, was less at his ease than 
she. He was walking about, hands in pockets, and 
whistling. 

“ I’m sorry to have had to interrupt the concert! ” 
said Angela. “ It was Baldie. He’s just around the 
corner and wants to come up. I told him to come 
along.” 

She seated herself on the chair which Katherine had 
vacated. 

“ Let’s begin this chorus over again,” she suggested. 

“ All right,” agreed Katherine. But Paolo was 
scowling; he went off up to his room rather than share 
honors with the Cub. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE CONQUERING HERO 

(l) 

“ Getting kisses from a girl/’ Baldie was fond of 
quoting in his dreadful, vulgar way, “ is like getting 
olives out of a bottle: once get the first one and the 
rest come easy.” 

To the truth of this generalization, Paolo could 
have testified; and there was nothing about his experi¬ 
ence with Katherine to convince him to the contrary. 

If, just along at the first, even the bold super-girl 
had been afraid at playing the big new love-game, and 
had felt uncertain of her security, she was afraid or 
uncertain no longer. She had herself set a limit. 
She had set a limit to madness, and Paolo had agreed 
to it. He had given his word of honor. 

It was, comparatively speaking, a conservative limit. 
Katherine—who wished to impress Paolo as a sin¬ 
gularly reckless, sophisticated woman-of-the-world— 
was chagrined to discover how dismayingly ignorant, 
and how embarrassingly proper, her unknown self 
was. But Paolo accepted what little favors she gave, 
and apparently was satisfied. 

And meanwhile old Dame Nature sat by at the pet¬ 
ting-parties and smiled, sleepily. She liked to see 

118 


THE CONQUERING HERO 119 

their play. Paolo saw her sitting by, and dozing, and 
smiling at their play. He smiled with her. 


( 2 ) 

One afternoon after the weather ameliorated, a 
sleek, expensive-looking little sedan slid silently up to 
the curb before the Graysons’ house, and stopped. 
Mr. Grayson was in the seat beside the driver. He 
was looking pleased with himself. There was no mis¬ 
taking the elegant perfection of the little Vite-Turenne. 
He had enjoyed the trial spin. Paul, who had diplo¬ 
matically occupied the back seat, smiled as he noted 
the proprietorial air with which his father eased his 
portly bulk out of the small door. 

“ Send the girls out, mio padre; there’s time for a 
little ride for them.” Paolo was anxious to have as 
many allies as possible. 

The day itself was conspiring with him. It was a 
glorious afternoon: chill in the shadows, but warm 
in the sun. In hedges, a faint spring-time budding 
showed, through rags of snow. It was a shame for 
anyone not to have a sleek little sedan in which to go 
out and (undisturbed by chilly breezes) meet the 
spring. Pedestrians, whom they had passed on the 
trial spin, had stared admiringly at the magnificent 
shining creature of steel and enamel, and (precisely 
as if they, too, were conspiring with Paolo) had cast 
envious or curious glances at Mr. Grayson, sitting in 
the proprietor’s seat beside the driver. Mr. Grayson 
had seen every glance. . . . 


120 


THE MOULD 


( 3 ) 

On the way back from their ride, Paolo and his 
sister and Katherine stopped within the entrance of 
Franklin Park, below the Refectory, and got out to 
climb the walled and roofed ivy-grown stone stair¬ 
case to the Refectory soda-fountain for some ginger- 
ale. After that they strolled around the broad 
vine-covered terrace. Below them the greensward 
dropped steeply to a ribbon of road far below, winding 
between knolls where sheep were nibbling the tender 
new grass. To the right lay smooth lawns and curv¬ 
ing lanes. To the left a line of faint blue hills edged 
the vaporous horizon. 

“ All the world might be at our feet,” murmured 
Paolo, sotto voce, to Katherine. 

Angela, struck by her brother’s tone, glanced quickly 
at him; and from him to Katherine, at whom he was 
gazing with an odd intentness. Katherine was look¬ 
ing down; she acted as if she had not heard Paolo’s 
remark. But her color was curiously heightened. 
Angela observed her brother and her guest with sud¬ 
den interest. 

Till now, she had been so completely absorbed in 
her own affair with Harold, that she had had little 
thought to give to Paolo or his possible machinations. 
Now, suddenly awake to the situation, she commenced 
putting two and two together with startling results. 
Such and such a time she had encountered Paolo de¬ 
scending a staircase (with an air best described as 
furtive) and, a moment later, had overtaken Katherine 
slipping away in the opposite direction. Such and 


THE CONQUERING HERO 121 

such a time she had fancied she heard whisperings— 
suppressed scuffiings—in a hallway or beyond a door¬ 
way. . . . Such a time, she remembered, they had 

lingered behind when the family left the drawing¬ 
room; and had come up a few minutes later, looking 
almost suspiciously cool and indifferent. Such and 
such an enigmatical remark of Paolo’s recurred with 
startling significance to her mind; such and such a 
confused downward look of Katherine’s. She re¬ 
called, now, what she had not thought of twice at the 
time, that coming into a room where Paolo and Kath¬ 
erine were sitting, innocently reading, she had had the 
vague sense of something electric in the air. 

At the time, she had remarked each of the isolated 
incidents; at the time, each had caused her an instant’s 
surprise; but never till now had they formed a chain 
of association in her mind. 

Her mind was in a whirl of incredulity and righteous 
indignation. Katherine, of all girls ! 

She was dreadfully disappointed in Katherine. 
Katherine who had never had a love-affair, never been 
kissed, hated the men! Katherine, who had alwayr. 
been a confidante with no sentimental preoccupations 
of her own! Angela felt justly aggrieved. Katherine 
had cheated her. Katherine was deliberately deceiv¬ 
ing her. 

And what could such deception mean but that Kath¬ 
erine was doing something of which she knew that 
Angela would disapprove? Angela well knew her 
brother’s methods (which she condoned in him be¬ 
cause of his sex and temperament) but she always had 


122 


THE MOULD 


thought that Katherine had the strength of char¬ 
acter-! Katherine had never talked like a “ nice ” 

girl, but she had always heretofore acted like one. 
Even with Baldie, Angela was sure, Katherine had 
always been “ nice.’' But now *- 

Could it be possible that Paolo for once was serious ? 
She glanced at him. He was at that moment leaning 
forward addressing a remark to Katherine. He was 
calling her as always, “ Miss Howard,” but Angela 
fancied that she detected a mocking intonation which 
implied the use of a less formal habit of address in 
private. Paolo for once seriously in love? The idea 
was strangely unwelcome to Paolo’s sister, and she 
set it hastily aside. He had always made her the 
confidante of his love-affairs (expurgated, of course) ; 
and she felt hurt and sore that he and Katherine 
should have united to cheat her. Such a deception 
could only mean that they were both doing something 
that they were ashamed of. Angela was disgusted. 
She would have expected it of Paolo, but she really 
had thought better of Katherine. 

Not that Angela laid any very serious charges at the 
door of the flirtation whose existence she suspected. 
It did not occur to her to be alarmed. Catastrophe 
was beyond her ken. But like many another young 
person of high moral conscience and strict judgments, 
Angela knew from that most reliable source of in¬ 
formation, experience, what sort of undignified follies 
disfigure the play-at-love, where love is not. She had 
learned, by experience, to make a large and charitable 
allowance for the weaknesses and frailties of the male 




THE CONQUERING HERO 123 

half of humanity: things are so difficult for them! 
She thought this knowledge was a good thing since it 
helped her now to understand some things about 
Harold which otherwise would have shocked her dis¬ 
astrously; but she was unwilling that Katherine also 
should learn for herself. Angela had the instincts of 
a reformer. She felt that she must warn Kathy at 
once, and put a stop to anything unadvisable that ex¬ 
isted between the latter and Angela's brother—if any¬ 
thing did. 


( 4 ) 

Dinner passed without unusual event. 

Mr. Grayson was very thoughtful, and left the table 
early. 

“ He is going down to the Vite-Turenne place 
again! ” whispered Angela, amused. 

Katherine changed color. She had begun to feel 
superstitious about this spun-out duel between Paolo 
and his father: as if the purchase or the non-purchase 
of the car were to be a sign. She glanced stealthily 
at Paolo. Paolo was smiling—the smile of complacent 
confidence. . . . 

After the coffee, instead of sitting in the library 
with “ the young people," as was her custom, Mrs. 
Grayson went up-stairs to her desk, to make up some 
accounts. And then Angela, that well-intentioned girl, 
laid a trap; trusting the laudable end to justify the 
rather questionable means. Paolo and Katherine were 
both reading; Angela excused herself, saying that she 
had a slight headache and was going to bed;—and then, 


124 


THE MOULD 


five minutes later, she returned, to ask Kathy if she 
had any aspirin in her bag. 

She wished—had intended—to slip back noiselessly; 
but for the life of her, she dared not cross the 
threshold till she had begun to hum a little tune. Still, 
there were evidences sufficient- 

With roving eyes, but sweetly, Angela made her 
inquiry about the aspirin, and received her answer 
from a Katherine who kept her eyes fixed on her book. 
Paolo was pacing the room, his olive face darkly 
flushed. 

There was a moment's pause. Neither Paolo nor 
Katherine looked at Angela, but Angela, from the 
vantage-point of a serene conscience, looked at 
both. 

“ If I were you, Katherine,” she remarked, drily, 
“ I’d arrange my hair before Father returns,”—And 
she walked out. 

A few minutes later, Katherine followed her to bed. 
The two friends undressed in guarded silence. 

It was Angela, who, at last, took the bull by the 
horns. 

“ Kitt}^,” she demanded, without indirection, “ are 
you in love with my brother ? ” 

Katherine risked a laugh. “ Oh, of course! ” she 
retorted, as if derisively. “ How could I help it— 
your brother, dearest girl! ” 

Angela became thoughtful. There was a short 
pause. 

Katherine laughed again, lightly. “ How would you 
like to have me for a sister, Angy, dear?” 



THE CONQUERING HERO 125 

“ Has he asked you ? ” demanded Angela, quickly. 

Katherine smiled. 

Angela studied the smile for a time. Then, coming 
apparently to some conclusion, she remarked, “ Of 
course I should love to have you for a sister, Kitty, 
dear. But I don’t think you’ll have the chance to de¬ 
cide it. My brother is not a marrying man. . . . 

For one thing, he couldn’t afford a wife.” 


(5) 

The following day dawned chill and dismal. A fine 
drizzle grayed the view from the billiard-room win¬ 
dows where Katherine stood looking out. In the wet 
street below, umbrellas dripped, puddles increased, 
pedestrians two-footed and four-footed splashed 
through the thin mud on the streaming pavement, 
electric cars took on and debouched their moist, be¬ 
draggled passengers. The tall brick houses opposite, 
washed from overflowing gutters, presented a discon¬ 
solate aspect. Beyond and behind all, the river, flat¬ 
tened under the thick-beating raindrops, seemed at a 
standstill; its sluggish tide seemed to have paused. 

“ What a disagreeable day 1 ” sighed Katherine petu¬ 
lantly, still looking out, with her back to the room. 

“Oh, really?” replied Paolo, its only other occu¬ 
pant, chalking his cue by the table. 

“ Do be entertaining, Paolo! ” she retorted, without 
turning. “ Or, at least, if you can’t be that, try to 
refrain from being disagreeable.” 

“ Why should I ? ” inquired Paolo, coolly, making a 


126 


THE MOULD 


careful bridge of the thumb and first finger of one 
hand as he prepared for a fancy shot. 

“ Oh, if to please me is no reason-! ” 

Paolo shot; there were the click of balls, a series of 
light thuds, a gentle subsiding commotion upon the 
table, and Paolo’s triumphant “ h’m ” before he re¬ 
plied, “ Mia cara Katherina, do you do so much to 
please me ? ” 

Katherine was silent. Her pride, and something 
deeper than that, was keenly wounded. Had her fa¬ 
vors, then, gone for so little? She remembered, for 
the first time since she had abandoned it, that first 
limit to madness that she had set, and she perceived 
suddenly how far, how very far beyond that was her 
limit to-day. Nobody now, however charitable, could 
have called it proper. She realized in a flash of bitter 
self-abasement what she would have thought, a month 
ago, of a girl who could have done the things she was 
doing. And every moving-back of the limit had rep¬ 
resented one more indulgence to Paolo. And now he 
had turned on her! He had turned on her because 
she couldn’t give anything more. She could not. She 
reiterated it to herself vehemently, “ I can’t! I 
can’t! ” 

And Paolo had turned on her! She was dumb with 
the injustice of it. 

Paolo took a shot or two more, then laid down his 
cue, and glanced at her back. He crossed to the door 
and looked meditatively up and down the hallway. 
The floor was deserted except for them. He recrossed 
the room with that quick, alert step which Katherine 



127 


THE CONQUERING HERO 

knew so well. But she did not turn. He thought her 
a glove, to be alternately picked up and cast off. Well, 
he should see! She kept a cold profile toward him. 

“ Look you, Katherine/’ he said, hurriedly, “ there 
it all is, out there! Friendships can stagnate like a 
puddle on the sidewalk throughout a lifetime; passion 
has a tide! It must progress or retrogress. It pauses 
only to begin the ebb.” 

He had not kissed her; he had not touched her; yet 
she felt paralyzed, petrified by his nearness. 

He leaned to her ear, yet not so much as brushing 
a fold of her dress with his body. 

“ It has come to the place where it must have its 
will with us; or ebb.” 

Her eyes widened slightly as if in a sudden fright. 
She could not bear to have it ebb! The threat of it 
made her grow icy cold. She turned; and saw his 
face. Then slowly she withdrew from him, back and 
back, her eyes fixed fascinated upon his, whose gaze 
terrified her. 

A question she had not meant to ask formed on her 
lips. “ Do you mean to marry me, Paolo? ” she stam¬ 
mered. 

His whole face changed like a lightning-flash. An 
intense disgust distorted it; contempt and scorn curled 
his lips. He straightened back with a jerk. 

“ Oh, you true woman! ” he ejaculated with a short, 
furious laugh. “ You all have your price! Why, 
Katherine, do you think I would buy your favors? 
Do you think that anything not given freely is of 
value to me? What have you that I can’t buy in the 


128 


TEE MOULD 


market excepting only the frank desire of me which 
can't be bought? Oh, you utter little mercenary 
wretch! What are you offering me? A trade: so 
many legalized delights in exchange for—a meal 
ticket! No, my dear girl! M 

“ So! ” cried Katherine, trembling, at white heat. 
“ So you would take everything and give me nothing 
in exchange! You are asking me . . . And yet 

at the mention of the price, you draw back. Oh, I 
wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the face! ” 
“ There, you see! ” he retorted contemptuously, 
smiling from an immeasurable mental height. “ If I 
will pay, I can have! Oh, you chaste, prudent vir¬ 
gins! You display your wares charily: half-seen-half- 
hidden entices most surely. You are careful to have 
a written promise to pay, signed and sealed and wit¬ 
nessed before you deliver the goods. Oh, you models 
of discretion and thrift! You have a chance to do 
just one big stroke of business in your lives, and you 
are well trained to make it a coup d’etat. And we 
poor, impulsive, incautious men say your sex has no 
head for business ! Pah! We’re no match for you! 
You’re all quivering, watchful, shrewd venders from 
the cradle up! ” 

Katherine had sunk back, half-supported by the 
window-sill and the casement. Now, as the last word 
ceased, she rallied desperately. 

“ It’s not my price! ” she cried, at bay. “ It’s not 
right! You know it’s not right/’ 

“ Questo e verol It’s not right—till your meal- 
ticket is safeguarded by law and church! . . . 


THE CONQUERING HERO 129 

Oh—my delight, which you would have me purchase, 
—Katherine, Katherine,—why is it not purchased 
fairly by the delight that I shall give you ? ” 

Her lids drooped, she turned her face half away, 
her head hung back, she flung out her hands against 
him. “ Oh, no, no! ” she gasped. “ Go! Go away! ” 
He paused. “ You mean that? Katherine—Kath¬ 
erine—you have gone so far, such a long, long road, 
and you will now look over the precipice and turn 
quietly back ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, yes! I will turn back! ” 

There was a long pause, during which she did not 
open her eyes. Then his footsteps sounded, receding 
slowly across the room. 

Katherine opened her eyes with a start. He had 
gone! . . . Well, why not? She had sent him. 

She straightened. She laid her palms and forehead 
against the window-glass. Its cool touch revived her. 
She went into the alcove and sat down and thought. 
She was glad that she had said that to him about 
marrying her, for his answer had revealed his true 
attitude to her, and had freed her from him. He could 
never have any power over her again. Her very self- 
respect, which he had lashed so mercilessly and so 
unjustly, would not permit that. . . . One of 

those queer, unaccountable freaks of memory, which 
we have all experienced, flashed an isolated fragment 
of history before her mental vision. Huntington 
Clarke, sitting on a stone step of the villa. He had 
punished cruelly with a little whip a pup that he was 
training; and then he had called it and it had crawled 


130 


THE MOULD 


back to him, belly to the ground, and licked his hand. 
It had somehow been a shameful, intolerable sight to 
Katherine. . . . 


( 6 ) 

Paolo, all day, was frigid and distant. He was very 
much displeased with her. Katherine carried her head 
high, and was gay; very gay indeed. 

The day went.—Hobbledy-hoy. 

Toward night Katherine’s sang-froid deserted her. 
She became pale and big-eyed. She could eat no din¬ 
ner. She had a headache, she said. 

“ You’d better go to bed immediately after dinner,” 
said Angela. “ Sleep in the pink guest-room to-night. 
Then I shan’t disturb you when I come to bed.—Oh, 
by the way, did I tell you? Father just telephoned. 
He has bought the sedan! ” 

The blood contracted violently in Katherine’s heart. 
Her eyes met Paolo’s. 

“ Yes, do that, Katherine,” said Mrs. Grayson, look¬ 
ing nervously at their guest. “ A good night’s rest is 
just what you need.” 

“ Yes,” echoed Paolo, with a slight smile, “ a good 
night’s sleep is just what you need.” 

Katherine drank a glass of water, spilling some. 

They left the table. Katherine lingered in the li¬ 
brary. 

“ Come, Kathy,” called Angela, from the staircase. 

Katherine started. 

“ Good-night, Katherine,” said Mrs. Grayson, tak- 


131 


THE CONQUERING HERO 

ing the girl’s hand. “ Why, your hand is like ice! I 
hope you’re not going to have a chill. Get straight to 
bed. Ignore your fever: it does not exist. God, love, 
truth, contradict sin, disease, and death. Take that 
thought to bed with you, Katherine.” 

“ Thank you,” replied Katherine breathlessly. “ I’ve 
no doubt I shall be all right in the morning. Good¬ 
night, Mrs. Grayson.—Good-night.” This to Paolo. 

She dared not raise her eyes to his. He held her 
hand, as his mother had done. 

“ Buone notte!” he said. “I wish you, as my 
mother did, ‘ good-night! * ” He added lightly, “ Do 
you know your Shelley ? ” 

“ What nonsense are you talking to Katherine, 
Paolo?” called Angela, sharply, from the staircase. 
“ Send her straight along.” 

“ You hear! ” exclaimed Paolo, earnestly. “ I am 
to send you straight along to bed. In case you are 
wakeful, the Shelley is on the table in the guest-room 
•—a little green book. If you see—ghosts, don’t 
scream! And hold fast my wishes for—a good night. 
Don’t forget Shelley.” 

“ Good-night,” murmured Katherine faintly. 

Angela bundled her off to bed directly with much 
Scientific advice and an un-Scientific hot-water bottle 
as a concession to Mortal Error. She snapped off 
the light, raised the window, looked out for a moment 
across the balcony which ran below it and the windows 
of the room next it, which was Paolo’s, into the deep 
dusk of the outer night, remarked how dark a sky 
it was, and kissed her friend good-night. 


132 


THE MOULD 


“ Sleep well, Kitty,” she said kindly. “ If you want 
anything in the night, just call.” 

“ Yes, yes,” replied Katherine, shivering. “ I’m 
only nervous. I shall be all right in th-th-the m-morn- 
ing.” 

The moment the door closed behind Angela, Kath¬ 
erine sprang up and flashed on the light. 

The little green leather-bound volume of Shelley’s 
love-poems was lying on the table. Katherine’s 
fingers, trying to pick it up, fumbled it; turning its 
pages in feverish haste, at the same time with fright¬ 
ened reluctance, they tore one. But at last she found 
it: Shelley’s Good-Night, that cryptic message from 
Paolo to her. 

Having read it, she dropped the book. 

She stared across the room, into a mirror. Her 
eyes, in the mirror, stared back, dark and fateful. 
They told her what of the future she was fain to 
know, and yet dared not know. . . . 

( 3 ) 

Angela sat late that night, writing to Harold: 

“ Mother is so vexed about it! I packed K. off to 
bed early this evening and had a chance to consult 
with her. Poor mother! She can’t quite get over the 
delusion that Paolo is her little lamb. ‘ Not—flirting 
with her! I can’t believe it! ’ said Mother. ‘ Why, 
Angela, are you quite sure? I’ve seen nothing! ’ ‘ It’s 
been going on under our eyes, nevertheless,’ replied I. 
And then I told her that I had practically caught them 
at it. 

“‘Whatever shall we do, Mother?’ said I. ‘We 


THE CONQUERING HERO 133 

can’t send her home, you know, and it really must be 
put a stop to. Katherine’s far too nice a girl to be 
allowed to make a fool of herself over Paolo/ And 
then I told her what K. had said about being my sister. 

Oh, of course that’s nonsense! * replied Mother. 
* Paul can hardly marry when he can’t make money 
enough to support himself; not to mention a wife! 
That’s out of the question. Pm sure Paul would 
never think of such a thing! But still—yes—of 
course, if Katherine is getting foolish ideas in her 
head, they must be nipped in the bud at once. Paul 
will have to go away until she goes home/ 

What if he won't?* said I. 

" * He will have to,' said Mother. ‘ Or his father 
will stop his allowance! * 

tl As you know, Harold, Father can ramp and roar 
and set his mighty foot down thump, and Paolo just 
smiles and works him all the same; but when Mother 
says * He will have to! * in that tone of voice, it means 
business! 

“ Poor Kitty! I am very much afraid she has made 
a little fool of herself about my brother; and men 
never respect the girls they can flirt with. How happy 
we are, Harold! Do you realize it? Suppose you 
didn’t love me-” 


It was late when Angela finished her letter. Every¬ 
body was in bed long since. The great house was 
wrapped in silence and darkness, except for the faint 
blue glow of night-lights in the hallways. She un¬ 
dressed and put on her warm dressing-gown and slip¬ 
pers, and, putting the heavy shade on her electric 
lamp, she threw the room into dusk. Taking a little 
black leather-bound volume of “ Science and Health ” 
from her book-shelf, she sat down by the lamp, and 



134 


THE MOULD 


read a chapter in it as she would have read a Bible. 
Monstrous shadows lay silently across the ceiling. 
Shapes stood in the farther gloom of the corners of 
the room. Giant fingers of shadow pointed steadily 
on the walls. 

Suddenly she interrupted her reading and listened. 
She fancied she had heard a sound—the echo of a 
cry. She could hear only the sudden loud beating of 
her heart. She rose, and tiptoed to her door, and 
opened it. The night-breeze blew in from the hall, 
lifting her white night-dress, that hung straight and 
virginal from her shoulders to her feet like a shroud, 
and floating it backwards against her knees. The hall 
was chilly. She listened. There was no sound in all 
the house. 

Suddenly chimes broke the silence. Four quarters 
played their complete tune: upon the last note broke 
a low, deep tone resounding twice upon the night. 

“Two o’clock!” thought Angela, shocked. “I 
shall be a wreck to-morrow! ” She closed the door 
hastily, and went to bed. 


( 9 ) 

Toward morning Katherine fell into a light sleep. 
Dawn was flushing the river when she awoke again. 
The early light was flooding the chamber. She sprang 
up, took her shower in the white-tiled bath, looked at 
herself wonderingly in a mirror, and dressed. She 
sang softly as she dressed. She stole down-stairs. 
The house was still asleep. She could hear Paolo’s 
heavy breathing as she paused a moment at his door. 


THE CONQUERING HERO 135 

She fancied how he would look, lying exhausted and 
asleep. A feeling of tenderness, new and almost ma¬ 
ternal, woke and stirred within her, at the image. 
Let him sleep well! 

She went out onto the street. The milk carts were 
finishing their rounds; an empty street-car lurched 
along past; housemaids were burnishing the door¬ 
plates and scrubbing the front steps of the neighboring 
houses. There was an air of alertness everywhere. 
Katherine walked rapidly down the street and across 
the Charles River Bridge. The river rippled swiftly 
along beneath her. Everything was moving. A con¬ 
fused sense of joy possessed her and impelled her to 
move with the spirit of the morning. She walked on, 
buoyantly and rapidly. She hardly realized how far 
she was going. 

When she returned to the house, she found herself 
late for breakfast. Angela and her mother were still 
at the table, but Mr. Grayson and Paolo had break¬ 
fasted and gone, the former into town, the latter to 
his room, where Angela presently joined him. 

What was that for? 

There was something uncomfortable in the air. 
Katherine was certain of it. Mrs. Grayson looked 
guilty, and Katherine fancied that it was she herself 
who was looking guilty. Each woman fancied the 
other had detected the secret cause of her own con¬ 
straint. 

An hour passed. Angela had not yet come down 
from Paolo's room. What was her business there, 
Katherine could only uneasily surmise. Her joyous 


136 


THE MOULD 


mood was flattening out. The reaction had set in. 
Excitement was ebbing and fatigue was beginning to 
tell. She began to feel nervously jaded, irritable, and 
discontented. A vague terror crept in upon her. 

Old Dame Nature had stopped smiling. She had 
been gulled, cheated, made a toy of, played with and 
then outwitted in the event, disappointed in her eternal, 
darling object. She was cross with Katherine. She 
laid on the lash. 

Katherine did not know that that was the trouble; 
and Paolo, expounder of the dangerous old Dame’s 
attitude in such matters, was not now present to ex¬ 
plain. Katherine tried to read, but the print swam 
before her eyes. Finally she fell asleep in her chair. 

She awoke with a start, sometime later, to hear the 
reverberation of the closing of the heavy outer door. 
She sat up. She was sore and stiff in every muscle. 
She looked, in a daze, at the clock. It registered a 
quarter to twelve. How long she had slept! A sud¬ 
den return current of thought pricked her from her 
sluggishness and sent her hastening to the window to 
see who had gone out. Paolo was walking down the 
street. 

A certainty of disaster seized her. Something was 
wrong! He did not return to luncheon. All the 
afternoon she prowled restlessly about: would he never 
come ? 


(io) 

Toward evening, as she was dressing in Angela’s 
room, she heard the outer door down-stairs close 


THE CONQUERING HERO 137 

heavily, and her heart jumped into her throat. Fol¬ 
lowing the sound of the door came Paolo’s voice, in¬ 
dolent and carrying, “Where is everybody?” 

How she wished she had been dressed! With 
fingers that trembled so that she could hardly fasten 
her lingerie clasps, she hastened to complete her 
toilette, and descend. But Mrs. Grayson was before 
her. Katherine heard her voice in the library where 
she was talking with Paolo. 

Katherine now found herself, after so many hours 
of desiring Paolo’s presence, physically incapable of 
entering the room where he was. Her knees trembled 
and threatened to dissolve beneath her; she clutched 
the balustrade for the support which she fancied that 
she needed. Her breathing would not be regulated; 
her breath came short and insufficiently. Her heart 
thumped; her voice had failed. 

She was dismayed at this mutiny of her physical 
forces. She wandered aimlessly through the other 
rooms on the floor, striving to regain her self-control. 
At last, with an effort, she succeeded in crossing the 
threshold of the library. 

Paolo rose instantly. 

“ Good-evening,” he said in a low tone. 

She had stopped just inside the doorway and re¬ 
turned his salutation in a tone scarcely audible. 

Their eyes met in a brief look. 

She crossed the rug and seated herself in a deep 
chair. It seemed as if Mrs. Grayson must have no¬ 
ticed the oddity of their greeting, but she appeared 
not to have. She resumed her conversation with her 


138 


TEE MOULD 


son. Katherine sat still, saying nothing, till the gong 
sounded for dinner. 

About the middle of the salad course* Paolo an¬ 
nounced his intention of going down to New York 
till after Easter. Katherine dropped her butter- 
spreader with a little clatter. Mr. Grayson looked up 
in surprise. 

“ What’s this for, Paul?” he said. 

Angela looked at her plate. Katherine stared in¬ 
tently at Paolo. 

Going away? Why? 

Mrs. Grayson essayed the feeble witticism about 
Easter bonnets, but her nervous glance at Angela be¬ 
trayed her. 

They were sending him away ! 

Katherine felt a spasm of fright that left her sick 

and dizzy. Had they found out, then-? Her very 

soul turned cowardly at the thought. 

“ Well, don’t expect to send the bill for your Easter 
bonnets to me,” said Mr. Grayson, with marks of dis¬ 
pleasure. “ When was this trip decided on, sir? ” 

“ Just decided,” muttered Paolo, with an annoyed 
air. 

“ Well, then, you’d better undecide it! ” announced 
Mr. Grayson, forcefully. “ I’ll be-” 

“ Papa! ” Mrs. Grayson interjected warningly. 

“ I’ll be— darned —if I’m going to have you gadding 
about—spending money like water—and sending the 
bills home to-” 

“ Oh, no, Papa ”—Mrs. Grayson cut in again, in 
that dry, positive little tone before which Katherine 






THE CONQUERING HERO 139 

had often seen her Sturdy Oak bow like a broken 
reed, “ a trip to New York will be very good for 
Paolo just now. He’s a little run-down, and a change 
will do him good.” 

“ Rot!” ejaculated Paolo. . . . Mrs. Grayson 
transfixed him with her eye. There was a brief pause. 

“ Paolo, you are run down,” she resumed, gently, 
after that momentary duel of glances. “ A change 
is what you need. . . . He is leaving to-morrow 

morning, Papa, on the Knickerbocker.” 

“ Oh—he is ! ” grumbled Mr. Grayson. “ Well, 
then, I suppose he is- . . . Angela! ” 

Angela jumped. 

But Mr. Grayson only wanted her to pass him the 
bread. 

Katherine made a swift deduction: Mr. Grayson 
knew nothing of the undercurrents; therefore nothing 
serious had transpired. For if anything serious had 
transpired, Mrs. Grayson would have gone straight 
to him with it. And dear innocent Angela would have 
been kept out of it. 

Katherine began to breathe again. There could be 
only one explanation. Angela had told her mother of 
the mild flirtation which she had discovered, and the 
naughty children were to be separated. So, they were 
packing Paolo off for the rest of her visit. 

A hot wave of crimson humiliation swept up to her 
brow. She felt like a small child who has had its 
hands slapped by its hostess and been sent home from 
the party in disgrace. 

And Paolo was going! She looked at him again. 



140 


TEE MOULD 


How could they make him go, if he was unwilling ? 
She gazed at him wonderingly. How could he go? 
Reluctantly, against his will, as if her prolonged gaze 
had forced it, his own eyes met hers an instant and 
dropped before the wonder in them. He affected a 
dignified detachment. There was something infinitely 
small and pathetic in this affectation of dignity. It was 
as if he clutched the rags of his self-respect to him, 
and they would not meet. 

She did not see him for a moment alone. Either 
Angela or Mrs. Grayson was always present and the 
two girls went to bed early. Angela turned away 
from her friend almost immediately and feigned sleep; 
but Katherine was sure from her breathing that she 
was awake. 

Long after the breathing had become the light and 
regular breathing of genuine slumber, Katherine lay 
awake, wondering and wondering. It was impossible 
that he was going, without a word to her! And then 
strung nerves relaxed, and she buried her face in her 
pillow and stifled the sound of her grief. She was 
weeping for the Katherine that had been, and that 
could be no more. 


(ii) 

She bore herself gallantly in the morning. He 
should see at least that she knew how to meet dis¬ 
aster. There were no tears, no recriminations. She 
perceived the dreadful error of the philosophy of 
pleasure that sent him out one Epicurean memory 
richer, and left her to face society bankrupt; she saw 


THE CONQUERING HERO 141 

now that he must have foreseen everything from the 
beginning, and known how, under given circumstances, 
she would act; she had been, she saw, a fool, and she 
had played his game for him. But she thought that 
the fool who drinks the dregs of his folly silently is 
at least less pitiable than he who throws the cup, too 
late, at the tapster. Paolo had played knave to her 
fool—doubtless had laughed in his sleeve all the way 
along at her little compunctions, her little resistances, 
knowing so well, all the way along, the end; but at 
least she could retrieve herself a little in his eyes 
now,—by her gameness, which he could hardly be 
expecting. His bags were ready. The maid was 
holding his overcoat. He had kissed his mother and 
his sister a hasty good-bye. And then he turned to 
Katherine. 

“ Good-bye,” he said. He was ashamed, desperately 
ashamed. His hand faltered in going out to offer it¬ 
self to hers. 

But she gave him her hand. She looked him gal¬ 
lantly in the eyes. She said a courageous, game 
“ Good-bye.” 

They all followed him into the hall. A servant took 
his bags out to the waiting taxicab. He put on his 
coat. He picked up his hat and gloves. He said 
good-bye again. He opened the vestibule door.—And 
then Katherine weakened. She said, “ Shall I ever see 
you, sometime ? ” She knew that she ought not to 
have. It had come out with a sort of gasp. 

Angela fixed her eyes upon her brother. Paolo, 
flushed and ill at ease, glanced uncomfortably toward 


142 


THE MOULD 


his sister, and then replied, “You’re very kind—I— 
but the truth is—I expect to be frightfully busy, you 
know. That is—it’s possible that I may return at once 

to Italy. I should like—and possibly-” 

“ Paolo knows,” interrupted Angela sweetly and dis¬ 
tinctly, “ that Father is very anxious that he should 
complete his musical education before leaving Italy 
for any length of time; and as he is practically de¬ 
pendent on the allowance which Papa gives him , of 

course he wouldn’t want-” 

“ No; exactly,” interrupted Paolo uncomfortably. 

“ Of course not! ” agreed Katherine, with a vivid 
smile. “ I understand—perfectly! ” 

The house-door, as Paolo closed it behind him, gave 
forth a bang that sounded suspiciously like a profane 
syllable, and the car-door, as he slammed it to, echoed 
the syllable. And both doors accurately expressed 
Paolo’s sentiments toward everything in the universe 
—particularly his dear sister Angela. And even by 
the time the New York Express was an hour out of 
Boston, when he was sitting in a comfortably padded 
swivel-armchair de luxe, he was still sweating with the 
humiliation of it; and neither the thought that he was 
happily clear of what might have been a serious 
entanglement, nor the pleasant recollections of a satis¬ 
fied Epicurean, could restore to him the tattered rags 
of his dignity. 

As the door closed behind him, Katherine, left 
alone in the hall, had said quietly to herself, “ So he 
was a cad as well as a knave!—Well—what is that to 
me?” Then a mist of red swam liquidly before her 




THE CONQUERING HERO 143 

eyeballs: was it blood? A puff of white smoke fol¬ 
lowed the doing of something dull and queer to her 
brain. 

“ Katherine? ” called Angela’s voice from the music- 
room. 

“Yes?” Her tongue was thick like a drunkard’s. 
She could not see the music-room door; but she started 
toward it, as she thought, and straightway fell over a 
chair. At this accident, she began to laugh immod¬ 
erately, and to try to explain that she had f-fallen 
over a chair; and then, bursting suddenly into tears, 
she fled up-stairs to her room. 

“ Good gosh! ” exclaimed Baldie Daggett, who had 
been admitted at the front door just in time to witness 
this denouement. “ What’s the row ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing, Baldie,” said Angela, crossly. 

“ Katherine has been a very foolish girl, that’s all,” 
replied Mrs. Grayson, with dignity. 


CHAPTER VII 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 

(l) 

Angela dared not that whole morning go up to her 
room. She dared not face Katherine’s mood. She 
felt, to tell the truth, rather mean; as if she had done 
something a trifle underhanded; something of which 
she was not quite proud. She spent a good deal of 
time in mentally justifying herself to her very tender 
conscience. 

She was glad that she had an appointment with the 
dentist at eleven, and glad that her appointment was 
delayed so that she had to have her luncheon in tow r n. 

Mrs. Grayson, meanwhile, had a Christian Science 
luncheon on Newbury Street, followed by a meeting at 
which Angela was to join her. Katherine had not 
come down before she left the house. There was no 
sound from her. The upper floors were as still as 
death. Nothing to indicate Katherine’s state of mind. 

The club-meeting was at three and it lasted two 
hours. Angela could not focus her mind on the very 
excellent papers which were read on that edifying 
topic: Mortal Error. She was thinking of the mo¬ 
ment when she would have to face Katherine’s mood. 
She wished she had gone up-stairs in the morning and 
had it over with, once for all. Katherine’s moods were 

144 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 145 


cumulative. They were like a big snowball set roll¬ 
ing down hill: the farther they rolled, the swifter they 
flew and the more rapidly their size increased. The 
longer Angela stayed away, therefore, the more diffi¬ 
cult it would be, she felt, to face Katherine’s accumu¬ 
lated mood. Yet the longer she stayed away the more 
eagerly she seized on every trivial pretext for delay. 
For once Angela felt herself a coward. 

For she had done right; certainly she had done 
right. Paolo had no business to flirt with Katherine. 
Why, then, should she not face Katherine in the calm 
courage of that knowledge? She fancied herself say¬ 
ing to Katherine, not apologetically, but lovingly, “ It 
was best for your sake, Kitty dear. My brother was 
flirting with you. Sometime you will thank me.” But 
Angela was suddenly, as she fancied it put in words, 
stricken with a very large doubt as to whether Kath¬ 
erine would see it in that light. 

Mrs. Grayson was irritated by Angela’s nervousness. 
Katherine, as she put it, had behaved in a very silly 
manner. She was acting like a child, and she should 
be treated like a child. She should simply be let alone 
till she had recovered from her temper. 

That was all very well, Angela thought, but how 
could she leave Katherine alone when the latter was 
camped out with her mood in Angela’s bedroom? 

Suppose (Angela put it to her mother, tentatively) 
that Katherine should not come down to dinner? 

Then Katherine, Mrs. Grayson replied with dignity, 
would be acting in a very unladylike manner. 

But suppose, Angela persisted, that Katherine did 


146 THE MOULD 

act in that very unladylike manner, what should they 
do? 

Mrs. Grayson thought that if Katherine had been so 
foolish as to fall in love with Paolo, she would hardly 
wish to blazon the fact to the whole world. Her pride, 
if nothing else, would naturally make her wish to cover 
it up, Mrs. Grayson was obliged to think. 

“ Ah, but,” said Angela wisely, “ you don’t know 
Katherine.” 

It gave her, nevertheless, a slight hope of reprieve 
to see, as they entered their own front hall about half¬ 
past five o’clock, fresh visiting cards on the salver: 
Marie’s and Bettina’s; and to receive assurance from 
the maid that Miss Hunt and Miss Mason were still 
in the house—up-stairs with Miss Howard. 

“ I should say so! ” commented Mrs. Grayson. 
“ One hears it.” 

A peal of laughter floated down from upper regions. 
It was a sound of schoolgirl merriment—Katherine’s 
merriment! Bettina's merriment joined it, in a shower 
of giggles, piercing, staccato. The duet of care-free 
young spirits at play rang out in pleasing antiphonies. 

Angela looked at her mother, aghast. 

Her mother nodded. “ You see! ” she said. 
“ Katherine is doing the only sensible thing.” 

Mrs. Grayson’s mind was off, already, on the trail 
of a missing item in the grocer’s bill of that morning. 

( 2 ) 

Katherine continued to do the only sensible thing. 
She greeted Angela with a careless, laughing, “ Oh, 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 147 

hello, Angela! For mercy’s sake, come and sit on 
Betty’s head! She’s mad, sheer mad! ” They were 
playing the children’s game of Slap-Jack! 

Slap-Jack! 

She invited Angela, precisely as if nothing had hap¬ 
pened, to join in the merriment of care-free young 
spirits at play. Were her eyelids a little thick? One 
could scarcely say; she kept them so wide open. An¬ 
gela caught herself wondering, in bewilderment, if 
anything had, after all, happened. 

Evidently Katherine had had no thought of not 
coming down to dinner. She had put on a wine- 
colored gown, cut very low in the back, clinging, and 
trailing a snaky little tail. She never had liked the 
dress—before. Now it seemed to fit a queer new 
mood in her as a glove fits the hand. Usually she 
was sparing of jewels. To-night she blazed with a 
sort of barbaric effulgence. Her throat she had 
clasped with a collar of garnets and light amethysts. 
A curious old pair of bracelets like manacles, locked 
each beneath a dull, dark blood-stone, but set naively 
with a pattern of rubies and brilliants—those encircled 
her wrists. Her fingers she had loaded with rings. 
The total effect was flamboyant, reckless, vividly beau¬ 
tiful. 

Dame Nature, perhaps, absorbed in her one idea, 
and looking after her thwarted interests, put it into 
the head of Davis Standish Vaughn II to pay, that 
electric evening, one of his exquisitely formal, twenty- 
minute, bi-monthly calls on Angela. If he had known 
that Katherine was there, he would have chosen an- 


148 


THE MOULD 


other evening, for he did not approve of Katherine. 
He was most careful about such things. Every girl 
he called on, was, to Davis II, potentially a wife, and 
as such must be measured against the women already 
in his family. He called on no girl who did not square, 
in social standing and breeding, with this measure. He 
ran no risks in the placing of his affections, for he 
was a virtuous young man and contemplated no alter¬ 
native to marriage. If Angela had been just a little 
more robust, he had often thought, she would have 
been just the wife for him. His parents, who had 
gone to school with her parents, would have liked to 
welcome Angela into the family: Angela was “ such a 
sweet girl,” and, it seemed, if not a brilliant match 
for Davis, at least a natural and happy one. Still they 
did not hurry him. They could trust him. He real¬ 
ized their claim, and he would never foist an unde¬ 
sirable daughter-in-law upon the family. If he did 
not seem to be paying suit to Angela more than to any 
other girl, they were not going to hurry him. He 
was only twenty-seven, and he had sixteen girls, in 
Boston and New York, on whom he called; and they 
were all nice girls with nice manners. 

Angela liked Davis II (a good many girls liked 
Davis II). She always treated him kindly, and as a 
family friend. When he called, she was always glad 
to see him, and she was always glad when he went, 
reliably at the end of his twenty minutes. It was often 
hard to find anything to talk about with Davis. Most 
of the sixteen girls in Boston and New York upon 
whom Davis called would have testified that this coin- 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 149 

cided with their own experience. They were always 
glad to see him, and glad that he could be relied on 
to take his leave in twenty minutes. 

This, then, was an historic call of Davis’s: he stayed 
three hours. 

Davis’s family, two days later, went abroad in the 
happy secret confidence that Davis would have some¬ 
thing to tell them when they came back. Angela was 
a dear girl—would make a sweet and devoted daugh¬ 
ter. They were very greatly pleased. 

Angela had no idea that the Vaughns expected 
Davis to marry her. Nothing in Davis’s manner sug¬ 
gested the suitor. The fact was that Davis II was a 
rather wooden young man, and he needed somebody 
who could (and would) set him on fire. None of the 
sixteen girls who measured up to the female Vaughns 
would have if they could. Davis had an instinct for 
immaculate, vegetable virtue. Paolo would have seen 
old Dame Nature sitting and leering at Davis; for 
Davis was one of those who hide themselves even 
from themselves. He had the scent for virtue; and all 
the time, secretly and unacknowledged, the wooden¬ 
ness of him was longing to be set on fire. 

That was the real trouble with Angela, though he 
did not know it: she would never set him on fire. 

No girl could have, honorably; Davis was so un¬ 
imaginative, so wooden, and so enamored of virtue. 
He could not even go half-way, like flint to steel. 
He had to be kindled, if at all, by a brand of some 
other man’s lighting. 

Katherine, recklessly, irresponsibly flaming, set him 


150 


TEE MOULD 


on fire; and new-made the world into a place where 
three hours could pass as twenty minutes. 

He could not take his eyes from her. She, and her 
wine-colored gown, and her garnets and rubies and 
amethysts and bloodstones and brilliants emitted, for 
him, flame; and from her and her wine-colored gown 
and her jeweled throat and wrists and hands he caught 
a vertiginous fire of his own, and gloried in his own 
peril, and the certitude of his destruction. 

It maddened Katherine to see him burn. It was as 
if Nature had added insult to injury by bringing his 
wood to her fire. What should she do with himt 

And then, suddenly, it occurred to her what she 
might do with him. “ ‘ Life ain’t/ ” Baldie was fond 
of quoting, “ ‘ in holding a good hand; but in playing 
a poor hand well/ ” 

She had thrown away an ace; but she still held some 
pretty high trumps. 


(3) 

On the next morning’s mail, two letters came for 
Katherine. The superscription of one was in the well- 
known handwriting of the loyal but not very literary 
Baldie. Katherine tossed it to Angela with a laugh. 

“ Read it for me,” she directed. 

The other letter bore a New York postmark. It 
was written on hotel stationery and addressed in a 
curious hand that, somehow, did not look quite genu¬ 
ine, to “ Miss Katherine Howard, Personal.” Up in 
the corner of the envelope was the statement that the 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 151 


letter, if not delivered in ten days, was to be returned 
to P. B. Shelley, at the appended address. 

“ It has been sealed and then pulled open again and 
resealed,” commented Angela, observantly, taking the 
mysterious missive from Katherine’s hand, and scru¬ 
tinizing it carefully. She had a strong detective in¬ 
stinct, had Angela. “ Who is P. B. Shelley ? ” 

“ Percy Bysshe, perhaps,” replied Katherine, lightly; 
but suddenly she knew, with absolute certitude, from 
whom the letter must be; and, repossessing herself of 
it, she thrust it, as carelessly as possible, into the 
front of her blouse. 

“ Some advertisement, probably,” she hazarded. 
She retrieved Baldie’s letter also, and feigned to give 
it her whole attention till such time as she could, with¬ 
out arousing Angela’s curiosity, steal away to a retired 
nook. 

The letter from P. B. Shelley, which was written in 
a different hand from the artificial chirography on the 
envelope, began: 

“ Mia cara Katherina : 

“ I owe you an apology for leaving you with so 
unceremonious a farewell yesterday morning. I can 
only plead, in extenuation of my discourtesy, the late¬ 
ness of the hour, and the immutability of the leaving¬ 
time of trains! As it was, I was in my chair scarcely 
five seconds before the train started.” 

Katherine’s lip curled. His train, indeed! A 
weighty excuse! 

The letter continued: 


I 


152 THE MOULD 

“ I am aware that you feel somewhat harshly to¬ 
ward me, and I can only admit that you are entirely 
justified. Hai ragione! My views of love and of 
marriage, which you know, are the views of a Liber¬ 
ated Future—a Future which shall dare to face the 
facts of things, and shall perhaps extract some good 
from them which the shams we clutch do not possess 
—but they are not the views of the Conventional 
Present. 

“ In forgetting for a moment (but such a moment!) 
that your welfare is bound up in your maintaining 
yourself in good standing with the Conventional Pres¬ 
ent, I have indeed sinned. Mea culpa! I can only 
stake my claim for forgiveness on your knowledge of 
how great was the temptation, and how sweet the 
sin! 

“ You can readily perceive, however, that our im¬ 
pulses have led us to enter upon a course of action 
which could end only in disaster for you. Your own 
instincts must tell you that for us to remain longer 
under the same roof, with no matter what good reso¬ 
lutions, is to court that disaster. We could not keep 
those resolutions. You know it. There must, for us, 
be no encora. It is in the second misstep that danger 
lies! 

“ Two courses, then, alone are open to me: to marry 
you, or to let you forget me. 

“ I choose the second; for, believe me, dear girl,— 
though I know you will not—it would be far from a 
kindness to you for me to marry you. A year, two 
years—perhaps less—the red flare of passion might 
endure; then—what? A lifetime of miseries for you; 
of exasperations for me. 

“ I am brutally frank—yes! But you are not the 
girl to shrink from facts! Stern medicine, but best, 
in the long run, to cure us both of our malady! 

“ Addio! You look upon me now as a bad friend; 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 153 


perhaps the time will come when you may realize I 
was, in some sort, a good one. 

“ Sempre il tuo fedele, 

« TD >> 


The first effect of this remarkable document was to 
make Katherine burn all over, as if she had received 
a slap in the face. Paolo’s open assumption that she 
cared so much for him when he cared so little for 

her-! And yet, had he not a right to assume that 

she cared very greatly indeed? Was there indeed any 
other decent interpretation of her actions? 

She read the letter through again; and, in spite of 
herself, she thrilled to it. With a little ink, a few pen- 
strokes, Paolo had rewoven his dignity, his desirability, 
about him. 

It was true, all that he said. (But it needed a coura¬ 
geous mind, writing to one that he knew to be as 
courageous as his own, to dare such frankness!) She 
knew his splendid, liberating theories of freedom of 
relation between men and women; but, with equal 
clearness, she knew who, if she and he attempted to 
live up to those theories, would pay; and, with an un¬ 
compromisingly correct estimate of herself, she knew 
she was unable to pay the price. She was not one of 
those romantic souls who “count the world well lost for 
love.” Though she had always thought herself reck¬ 
less, she found herself, at the pinch, too canny. She 
doubted his inability to make as much of a success 
of marriage as the average man. She suspected it 
was rather a case of would not, than could not. Still, 



154 THE MOULD 

there was no doubt that he believed himself to be 
sincere-- She gave him credit for that belief. 

A selfish man might have stayed; might have played 
weakly with good resolutions that he knew were fore¬ 
doomed to failure; might have gratified his own desire 
at whatever cost of disaster to her. 

Not so Paolo! He had risen above self! He had 
courageously faced the facts—forced her to face them 
with him—had renounced, for herself and him, the 
transient pleasure of the moment that he might better 
guard her ultimate welfare than she was yet prepared 
to guard it for herself! 

His mother’s dictum had but coincided with his own 
decision. That was why he had yielded to it. . . . 

And how his renunciation had elevated their 
hitherto rather questionable relation! This was 
friendship! And what a fine friendship it was—how 
frank—how scornful of subterfuge—how presump¬ 
tive of an equality between him and her that would 
make her scorn to use the unfair prerogative with 
which society has striven to balance the unfair disad¬ 
vantages accruing to her sex. She read the letter 
again, thrilling again. Davis Vaughn? He had faded 
below the horizon. She began planning a reply to 
Paolo—a reply that should show him he had not mis¬ 
judged her—a reply that should open the way for 
friendship—at a safe distance. . . . 

(4) 

Paolo’s letter ended at the bottom of a sheet. She 
did not see till she refolded it that the letter really had 



A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 155 


been reopened, and that there was a postscript hastily 
scrawled on the back, and blurred as if, after writing 
it, the writer had hurriedly thrust the sheet back into 
the envelope. 

With a ghastly premonition of its purport, she read 
it: 

“ I am not sailing for a week yet. Possibly you 
may be in New York sometime before then-?” 

Katherine gave a loud, loud laugh. 

“ What are you laughing at, Katherine ? ” called 
Angela, from the next room, somewhat irritably, for 
her nerves were not yet settled after the events of the 
two days preceding. 

“ I am laughing,” cried Katherine joyously, “ at the 
fatal tendency of human nature to write postscripts! ” 

She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was a quarter to 
nine. She jumped up and slipped into a rose-colored 
sweater and a rakish little toque that suited her well. 
She rejoined Angela. 

“ Where are you going? ” demanded the young lady. 

" Out for a constitutional,” replied Katherine 
calmly. 

“ To meet Davis Vaughn?” inquired Angela, sus¬ 
piciously. Had not Davis said, the night before, that, 
in his devotion to fresh air and exercise, he passed 
there every morning on his way to his father's office, 
a little before nine? 

“ Possibly,” replied Katherine. 

41 Who was your letter from?” asked Angela, ex¬ 
huming the dead and buried subject, with startling 
effect. Paolo ? ” 



156 


THE MOULD 


She looked at her friend with a slight smile. 

“ Why do you ask that ? ” replied Katherine, some¬ 
what taken aback. 

“ Because it’s just the sort of thing that Paolo would 
do,” replied Angela, complacently. “ You’ll be a great 
fool, my dear, if you pay any attention to anything he 
says. Paolo,” she pursed her lips, “ is a very fine 
talker .” 

“ My dear Angy,” retorted Katherine, though she 
reddened, “ do you think I don’t know about how 
much truth there is in anything that anyone says ? ” 

She stuck her hands in the pockets of the rose- 
colored sweater, whistled a meditative tune, looked 
out of a bay-window, and saw a tall, sandy-complex- 
ioned young man in immaculate morning costume, ap¬ 
proaching, down Beacon Street. She regarded him 
thoughtfully for a few moments, smiled, sauntered 
down-stairs, opened the front door, reflected a mo¬ 
ment, and then descended to the sidewalk, turned up 
the street, and, a few seconds later, met the young 
man face to face. 


(5) 

No one who witnessed Katherine’s greeting to 
Davis, that morning, would have supposed she de¬ 
spised the traditional wiles and guiles of her sex. Her 
good-morning had an air a little surprised, a little 
pleased, a trifle intimate. 

“ How sorry I am for you, Mr. Vaughn! ” she con¬ 
tinued, brightly. 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 157 

“Why?” He came, galvanically, to a stop. Did 
she know-? Did his face show-? 

“ Having to go to work on a morning like this! ” 
She was personified Innocence. He breathed again. 
She did not suspect- 

And meanwhile, at her direction, he peered between 
brick houses, down areas, at a narrow vista contain¬ 
ing a transverse section of empty Esplanade and 
gleaming, foam-flecked river. 

“ That’s where I’m bound for! ” announced the in¬ 
nocent girl. 

Davis hesitated; looked at his watch. 

“ I’m a little early,” he muttered. 

She taunted him with her own freedom and his 
lack of it. “ No, no! You can’t go with me! You 
might be late to your office—and then what would 
happen ? ” 

What would happen? 

Nothing. 

Nothing at all. Davis, already Junior Partner 
(such was his conscientious industry and natural apti¬ 
tude for business) in the Vaughn Lumber Company, 
was his own master. 

Yet he hesitated. 

In all his well-ordered business career, which had 
begun some ten years before, when, at the age of 
seventeen, he was graduated from Stone’s,—in all 
these ten conscientious years, Davis had never, by the 
fraction of a minute, been late to his desk. No! Such 
a record could not be lightly- 

At the psychological instant, Katherine, watching 






158 


THE MOULD 


him with concealed intensity, laughed; and her laugh 
was like the light flick of a whip-lash. 

Davis flushed. 

“I guess I’m my own master! ” he announced 
hastily. “ Let's try the Esplanade! " 

It was a walk! 

Never had a girl treated Davis as Katherine did. 
The sixteen nice girls in Boston and New York were 
all polite and gentle of speech. Katherine tormented 
him with impertinences, teased him, and then soothed 
him with a kindness of such a quality as intoxicated 
him and left him thirsting for more impertinences that 
there might be more kindness. 

One moment he was in the depths of despond, cer¬ 
tain that this radiant girl had no use for him; the next 
instant he had sprung to the seventh heaven on the 
wings of a hope that they might, after all, be friends. 

She showed him (pushing back her sleeve) where 
the manacle had pinched her wrist, the night before, 
in being fastened. His arm, as hers lay, for a mo¬ 
ment, lightly (and innocently) across it, quivered. 

None of the sixteen nice girls would have done that, 
and he knew it. She was flirting with him outra¬ 
geously. (Or was she?) 

At any rate, flirting or not, he liked it! He liked it, 
and he didn’t care! He supposed this was what girls 
referred to as " vamping”; but he didn't care. He 
didn’t care— what. It was what he had been secretly 
wanting for the last ten of his twenty-seven years; 
but he had always been too carefully protected by his 
Family and the Sixteen, from any young woman who 


A POOR HAND WELL PLAYED 159 

could have had the effect on him that Katherine was 
having now. . . . 

His family were going abroad to-morrow . . . 

for three months. . . . 

Suddenly Katherine stopped short. 

“ My goodness! ” she cried. “ I don’t dare look at 
my watch! You can’t come one single step farther 
with me! You’ve come too far already! ” 

He knew he had; but he rebelled a little, for she 
was making him leave her just when he wanted most 
to stay; and she was evasive as to when he could see 
her again. . . . 

The stenographers in the outer office stared as 
Davis, poorly feigning unconcern, stalked through 
their midst—an hour and a half late. 

At his desk, in the privacy of his own office, head 
in hands, Davis sat and thought. 

What had she done to him—this Miss Howard? 
How had she suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, 
come to be to him what she was? Only a week, two 
weeks, ago, he had seen her, and she might have been 
anybody. He hadn’t even thought her good-looking. 
And now --! 

What had she done to him ? 

And with what disorganizing effect had she in¬ 
vaded his orderly existence! Last night she had made 
him forget entirely the conventional limits of a social 
call. A miracle! This morning she had made him 
late— late —to work. A greater miracle. 

Half-terrified, he looked ahead down a long vista, 
filled with more and more, greater and greater 



160 


THE MOULD 


miracles. And all of them, he foresaw, disrupting, 
annihilating his orderliness. 

He did not care. He hated orderliness. . . . 

( 6 ) 

In due season their engagement was announced. A 
number of people were flatteringly startled, and, after 
the first breathlessness, Katherine was pleased with 
herself. It was pleasant to be told by Bettina and 
Hattie and the other girls that she had made the catch 
of the year. Davis II was rich, very rich indeed, even 
in his own right (in case his family, who were still 
abroad, should disinherit him when thev heard the 
news) ; and while, being of a general sandy com¬ 
plexion and small top-head, he was not, for looks, 
precisely what Katherine might have desired in an 
ideal husband, still he had good height and an excel¬ 
lent physique; he was always faultlessly groomed, and 
had a distinguished carriage which marked him in a 
crowd. 

The date of their marriage was set for the follow¬ 
ing autumn. Katherine would not be hurried. 

That, said Marie, was a mistake. Katherine would 
better take him while she could get him. 

Katherine heard what Marie had said. She smiled. 


CHAPTER VIII 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 

(I) 

Davis’s family were traveling in Norway when the 
cabled news of his engagement overtook them. 
Davis’s father, stricken, cabled a diplomatic reply: 

“ Don’t announce engagement till we arrive. Com¬ 
ing next steamer.” 

And back they came: Davis Standish I, Mrs. 
Vaughn, Davis’s married sister and her husband, 
maids, couriers, and baggage. In such force assem¬ 
bled, they were confident of their ability to make 
Davis realize, by the sheer impact of their irreproach- 
ability, the unsuitability of Katherine as a prospective 
member of the Family. 

Not that they knew anything against Katherine. 
They did not, indeed, know her at all, even by sight. 
They only knew that she was the offspring of Richard 
Howard, a scapegrace whose personal indulgences, it 
was whispered, were beginning to tell, ever so slightly, 
on his business efficiency; and Mrs. Vaughn remem¬ 
bered vividly Belle Ansella, that perplexing adven¬ 
turess, by whom she had once been worsted in a 
lively encounter. It was enough. The heiress of so 
dubious a heritage could not possibly be a suitable 
candidate for admittance into the family. 

161 


162 


THE MOULD 


Besides, Katherine had, underhandedly, and con¬ 
trary to all the proprieties by which the Vaughns lived 
and moved and had their being, ensnared Davis during 
the absence of his natural protectors. She had not 
given them an opportunity to look up her antecedents 
and investigate her personal desirability before accept¬ 
ing him. It was a practical confession of undesira¬ 
bility. Back they came. 

But Katherine was ready for them. The innocent 
girl was prepared: an outfit of demure frocks; an 
outfit of demure manners. The frocks and the man¬ 
ners—an insinuating pathos, based on motherlessness, 
toward Mrs. Vaughn; and a pathetic eagerness to 
“ learn ” of that lady—these, reinforced by a queer, 
alarming doggedness on the part of Davis, turned the 
trick. The engagement was announced, and it was 
understood to have the sanction of the Vaughns. 

For most people that was sufficient. It was amazing 
what personages, hitherto unaware of the existence of 
Katherine Howard, hastened, on the strength of her 
engagement to Davis Vaughn, to extend her social 
credit. She was invited about; people—particularly 
the socially ambitious—gave little luncheons and big 
teas and dinner-dances for her and Davis. It was, 
for Katherine, quite like a debut—the debut she had 
never had. 

Still, there was another side of it. The Vaughns 
might possibly be resigned: they could not possibly be 
pleased. Davis might make one of any number of 
marriages in their own set, the least brilliant of which 
would be as much brighter than this mesalliance as an 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


1G3 


arc-light is brighter, and more wholesome, than phos¬ 
phorescence. And perhaps they were not even re¬ 
signed: perhaps they were playing a waiting game. 
There were plenty of people—pinch-nostriled inhabi¬ 
tants of lower Beacon Street—who continued frigidly 
to ignore the social existence of Richard Howard’s 
daughter; and who, when the topic of Davis Vaughn’s 
engagement was broached, changed the subject. 

It began to be generally understood in fact, by and 
by, that there was something a trifle dubious about the 
engagement. There were people who dared speak of 
it as an entanglement. It was rumored that Mrs. 
Vaughn had criticized, in confidence, Katherine’s 
“ attitude as an engaged girl ”; and had added that 
poor Davis seemed blindly infatuated. 

Katherine’s attitude as an engaged girl was certainly 
peculiar. It was obvious to almost anybody that she 
avoided tete-a-tetes with her fiance. It was the way, 
Marie said, that she held him. It was the way, Kath¬ 
erine said herself, that she kept herself from being 
bored to extinction. 

As summer came on, however, she was forced to see 
more and more of him, and the chain of his dullness 
galled her. She became restive under it. She began 
to wonder how much, perhaps, at the very least, she 
would have to see of him after their marriage. Her 
former flippant theories of a husband’s insignificance as 
a “ mere detail in one’s environment ” paled before the 
face of a fiance’s alarming significance. Davis II’s 
dullness loomed a monstrous thing. She was appalled 
at its enormity and at his complacent ignorance of its 


164 


THE MOULD 


existence. She knew beforehand exactly what he was 
going to say, every time he opened his mouth. Fre¬ 
quently he said the same thing twice after an interval 
of days or weeks, and the iteration fretted her ear 
like the maddening tick of a clock in the night. His 
thoughts ran in a few neat grooves; how intimately 
she knew them! Hygiene, motor-boats, golf, lumber! 
There they were, labeled. 

He had, to be sure, his good points. He was 
chivalrous, gentle, sentimental. If he frequently cen¬ 
sored (gently) Katherine’s conversation, and sug¬ 
gested modification in her clothes, habits, and friends 
(he banned Baldie entirely), on the other hand he 
defended her with the most touching inconsistency 
from criticism on the same points by his family. 

“ Katherine has poor Davis wound around her little 
finger,” lamented Davis’s married sister. 

But it was not so; and nobody knew that better than 
Katherine herself. She often longed for a clash of 
wills; in a clash she would have come out better. But 
there was never a clash. Her will merely thudded, 
like steel on lignum-vitae, against a solid, immovable, 
impregnable, inert obstacle: Davis’s obstinacy. There 
was no reasoning with it, no appealing from it, no 
conquering it. 


( 2 ) 

The time approached when she must spend hours 
standing for fittings if she wished her trousseau to 
materialize; when the bridesmaids must promise faith¬ 
fully not to desert the bride, and must let their gowns 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


165 


be dictated; when the day and hour of the wedding 
must be decided, and the invitations ordered. It was 
a trying time for Katherine. She chafed under its 
demands, and began audibly to wish that she could be 
married without a wedding. She lost some of her 
good color. She began to have headaches. “ Liver,” 
said Davis anxiously, and prescribed rhubarb salts. 
Katherine finally agreed to see a doctor. 

Two days later she had a headache again. 

" You ought to drink a good cereal coffee,” said 
Davis, seriously. “ Really I used to have headaches 
myself, but since I began Postum I haven't been 
troubled once. It’s the coffee that's causing these 
headaches of yours. There’s such a thing, you know, 
as ‘ coffee heart ’; recognized by physicians. It begins 
with headache, bad color, flutterings of the heart, sink¬ 
ing sensations, faintness, dizziness, and may prove 
fatal. Did you know that by actual statistics, coffee 
kills more people annually than alcohol does ? ” 

“ Really ? ” replied Katherine, with an effort. She 
had a very bad headache. 

“ Yes, it’s an actual fact. You know my physical 
condition is a little hobby of mine. I have come to 
the conclusion that there’s no excuse for a person’s 
being ‘ run down/ ” He looked at Katherine argu¬ 
mentatively. 

“ No? ” said Katherine, with a second effort. 

“ No. Not if he sleeps well, exercises well, and 
eats the right things. Now I take what I call a com¬ 
mon-sense breakfast:” (Katherine knew the menu by 
heart) “ some fresh fruit or a baked apple, two 


166 


THE MOULD 


shredded wheat biscuits with hot milk, three soft- 
boiled eggs, zwieback and Postum. If you’d do it, 
sweetheart-” 

Katherine shivered. A vision of her lazy late 
breakfast-in-bed flashed before her mind in vivid con¬ 
trast to the picture of Davis, methodical, regular in his 
habits, seated at his seven o’clock meal, prosaically 
consuming enormous quantities of eggs, cereal, and 
Postum: a vision of a dainty inlaid tray, the thinnest 
of purple-and-gold coffee-cups smoking-full of a deli¬ 
cious poisonous beverage, golden-brown (and indigesti¬ 
ble) with cream, a delicate plate of crisped triangles of 
buttered toast, a golden glowing spoonful of marma¬ 
lade, and a great yellow rose lying across the snowy 
napkin. “ Yes? ” she said. 

“ But I will teach you—later-” Davis’s eyes 

were colorless, deep-set under sandy, bushy brows; 
one remembered the look, without being able to recol¬ 
lect the eyes; the look, as it rested now on Katherine, 
was infinitely tender. He was thinking, she knew, of 
a seven o’clock breakfast table, set with double quanti¬ 
ties of eggs and shredded wheat and baked apples, 
where punctually, the cereal coffee should be poured 
by the capable adorable hands of her: his dutiful wife. 
Poor Davis! How he was going to be cheated! She 
closed her eyes. She felt very tired—and loathsome. 

He was anxious in a moment. 

No, it was only that her head ached. 

Had it kept her awake at night ? 

No. 

“ But you look as if you had not had enough sleep.” 




HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


167 


“ I did not go to bed very early.” 

He shook his head at her. His look contained gen¬ 
tle, anxious reproof. She could not bear it any 
longer. She rose hastily and excused herself. He 
excused her; certainly. She must lie down and take 
a nap. She was gone so quickly that he had not time 
for a kiss even of her brown nervous hands. His 
look, as he turned away and went out, was downward 
bent: a hungry, dumb, voiceless look. 


(3) 

He worried about Katherine’s headaches. 

“ Why are you always tired, lately ? ” he asked 
anxiously. “ It isn’t a good sign. You haven’t been 
smoking again, have you, dearest? There must be 
something wrong underneath. I wanted to talk over 
the question of your allowance; but if you are 
tired-” 

“ There is always so much to talk over,” said 
Katherine. 


(4) 

It was worst of all when they discussed their future 
home-making. Davis’s father wished him (and Davis’s 
own wish was one with his father’s) to establish a 
family estate. It was his idea to purchase some six or 
seven hundred acres in the country outside of Bos¬ 
ton—perhaps out toward Monroe’s and Billerica—lay 
out a portion of it in lawns and drives, put in an 
artificial lake and build a handsome residence upon its 



168 THE MOULD 

% 

border; then to live there and improve the rest of the 
land at his leisure. 

Katherine objected strenuously to this plan. 

In the first place it would put her beyond reach of 
her acquaintances; and even open hospitality cannot 
take place of the afternoon cup of tea casually shared 
with the chance caller. Especially in winter when 
their country estate should be snowed under, with her 
and Davis left to their own devices winter evening 
after winter evening till they should be thawed and 
ploughed out again to renewed intercourse with so¬ 
ciety ! 

In the second place it would take them out of town, 
and, Katherine said, she lived on the whirl and excite¬ 
ment of city life: the actual clanging of tram-car 
bells and motor trucks, and the shouting of team¬ 
sters. 

The result of all this disagreement was the post¬ 
ponement of their wedding from that autumn to the 
following spring. 

“ Oh, we’ll never get along together,” Katherine 
remarked to Angela, whose engagement to Harold 
Fifield had just been announced. “We disagree on 
everything. This morning we quarreled again. That 
is, not quarreled, but we had a discussion.” 

Angela tightened the linen in her embroidery hoop. 
She was paying an afternoon call upon Katherine and 
had industriously brought some work along. “ What 
was the matter this morning? ” she asked. 

“ Our rooms. He wants us ”—Katherine sniffed— 
“ to use the same—the same bedroom! ” 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 169 

"Well, why not?” inquired Angela. "You’re 
going to marry him, aren’t you ? ” 

" But heavens, Angy,” protested Katherine with 
heat, " it isn’t as if he were poor and couldn’t afford 
a double suite. He wants it so because he wants to be 
with me all the time! ” 

Angela cast a disapproving glance up at her friend. 
" Does that seem so unnatural to you, Katherine ? ” 
she asked, with raised brows. " Because if it does, I 
don’t think you’d better marry him.” 

" And I hurt his feelings,” continued Katherine rue¬ 
fully. " But Angela, I should stifle! I must have 
some place where I can get away and be by myself. 
I should go mad, I tell you.” 

Angela bent over her work. " Do you love him, 
Katherine ? ” she asked, inquisitively. 

Katherine twitched her body impatiently. " I don’t 
believe in love,” she replied scornfully. 

Angela stuck her needle in the linen, laid down her 
hoop and looked up at Katherine. 

" Then, Katherine,” she said righteously, " I don’t 
know how you dare marry Davis; for he believes in 
love. And Katherine, it is one thing to throw your 
arms around your husband’s neck and kiss him because 
you love him dearly and are crazy about him—crazy 
about him, Katherine—and another thing to do it be¬ 
cause it is your wifely duty. . . . And Davis 

is not the man to go his way and let his wife go 
hers.” 

Katherine shivered, for she suspected that Angela 
was right. 


170 


THE MOULD 


(5) 

It remained, however, for an unforeseen event to 
bring her sense of Davis’s obstinate claims to a head, 
and to sharpen past endurance her impatience of his 
right to be considered in all her decisions: she received 
a letter from Paolo in Italy. 

He reminded her that she had promised to let him 
interpret to her, sometime, his beloved Napoli. The 
promise, he pointed out, was as yet unredeemed. The 
winter was before them; would she not remember her 
promise more fruitfully? He recalled to her mind (as 
if she were likely to forget them!) certain episodes of 
their friendship which were, perhaps, better forgotten 
but sweet to remember. That was all. There was no 
mention of her engagement, though he certainly knew 
she was engaged. He seemed to ignore it as com¬ 
pletely as if it were only a fiction. 

Katherine laughed, and tossed the letter aside. It 
did not need an answer. Its impudence exempted her 
from the necessity of replying. It took her a little 
too much for granted! Did he think her engagement 
so light a thing? 

She reread the letter. 

Now it seemed to her that she detected the un¬ 
written writing between the lines. It was almost as if 
Paolo knew what was going on in her secret soul; it 
was almost as if his silence about her engagement said, 
“ I know you better than you know yourself, Kather¬ 
ine. Davis is no husband for you. You will never 
marry him. His love ties you by the feet. You know 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


171 


and I know that you are already tearing and breaking 
and struggling your way free from it. I need say 
nothing. I do not pose as your liberator; you do not 
need a liberator; the law of your own nature is libera¬ 
tor enough. I regard it as a fact accomplished (your 
liberty of action), therefore I do not refer to the 
mockery of your being in bonds—bound by the feet. 
(You, the fleet-footed, bound by the feet!) . . . 
I have something better to talk of : Italy.” 

And what of his own attitude? That, too, was 
defined by what he had not said. That, too, started 
into legibility between the written lines. “ I recognize 
your immortal right to freedom; that right which you 
are trying to bargain away to Davis and cannot. By 
that token, you are safe with me—I shall not catch 
you and tie you. Come and look at Italy with me; 
and go—as free as when you came! ” 

Though possibly a little contradictory of the former 
letter she had had from Paolo, was it, after all, really 
presumptuous? Had he not seen her truly—more 
truly than she had seen herself? Had she not, truly, 
tried to bargain herself into captivity and repented? 
Was she not, truly, bound by the feet and struggling 
to get free? Was his letter, after all, so egotistical? 
Was he not offering her Italy, rather than himself? 
Once it had chagrined her because Paolo had not 
wanted to marry her: now she was grateful for the 
fact. 

Davis had alarmed her about marriage, the con¬ 
ventional marriage, the institution that Paolo, more 
courageous than she, dared not only to disbelieve in 


172 


THE MOULD 


but also to renounce. The thought of Davis stifled 
her, like being shut in a room whose doors were never 
to be opened. The thought of Paolo, by contrast, 
seemed large and open—like having the run of the 
woods and fells. 

She read the letter again. “ Did she remem¬ 
ber-? ” Did she remember ! She caught the letter 

to her bosom, pressed hard against her under her open 

palms. But she remembered also- She snatched 

it out and tore it fiercely into fragments, divided and 
sub-divided. After all, why was he writing to her 
now? Was “Bice” playing off, and did he want to 
show Bice that he had only to beckon and he could 
bring a girl all the way from America to be made a 
fool of? ... A girl he had jilted, too? . . . 

No, assuredly that was a trifle too insolent! She 
scattered the fragments of his letter into her waste- 
paper basket. 

But she could not so easily scatter the memories. 
They made her restless. She took out her car and 
tried to ride the restlessness off, but it rode with her, 
goading her to speed beyond speed, in vain; till at last 
she gave up and turned homeward. 

At the Boylston Street transfer-station she was 
caught in a block. It was the last straw. To stop 
seemed to admit defeat. No blockade could—should 
—thwart her, in such a mood! There was a little 
space ahead yet: she insinuated her car into it, trusting 
the block to break up before she need stop. 

The space was too narrow, and she went too far, 
and before she knew it she was scraping the mud- 




HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 173 

guard of the car on her right. Its driver turned 
irascibly on her. “ Hey! What’s the big idea ? ” 

It was her father. 

For years, ever since the episode in Montescue’s 
drawing-room, Katherine had dreaded sometime meet¬ 
ing him: the inevitable chance meeting which was 
bound, sometime, to take place. And now it had come. 
She was caught in the block, almost elbow to elbow 
with him; a car wedged in behind her, its fender 
against her rear lights, made a withdrawal, even of 
inches, impossible to attempt. 

She stared at Dickie, and Dickie, aware of having 
used an offensive tone to a lady, but too sullen to 
apologize, glowered at her. He did not recognize her! 
The blessed fact dawned slowly on her. Their previ¬ 
ous meeting had been years ago; she had changed in 
looks since then; he had only seen her once; never 
with a hat: and a hat makes all the difference. 

He, too, had changed. It was evident, even to a 
superficial scrutiny, that his liver was playing smash 
with him; also that his nerves were gone. The futile, 
jerky honking of his horn showed the latter; also the 
irascible scowl, and the twitching of a little muscle in 
one cheek. 

Dickie had a significant companion with him, too: a 
young person with diamonds in her ear-lobes. Hith¬ 
erto, Dickie had kept business and pleasure strictly 
separate: each strictly confined to its appropriate divi¬ 
sion of the day. Now it appeared (it was just three 
by Lloyd’s clock) that pleasure was at last, in the 
form of the young person with the ear-rings, encroach- 


174 


THE MOULD 


ing on business-hours. There was every indication 
that Dickie was over-speeding and that, though he had 
got by with it a couple of decades, the grim traffic 
officer on Life’s thoroughfare was holding the stop¬ 
watch on him now. 

The sentimental impulse to cut out his parties, 
clean his house, and take his “ little girl ” home with 
him to keep it clean, had been but the moment of last 
suspense in a tragedy which was now moving swiftly 
to the catastrophe. 

Katherine’s sombre gaze upon him appeared to have 
a telepathic effect on him, for at last he turned and 
encountered it. At the same instant, some level 
quality of her look—familiar, never-to-be-forgotten— 
arrested his own gaze, made him look again, stare 
(while the hot color crept up Katherine’s cheek), and 
recognize her. 

“ Oh, hello! ” he said. 

Katherine, confused, opened her lips without reply¬ 
ing. 

He looked again. 

“ Not living in the country, then? ” 

Katherine reddened furiously. It was unjust! 
Unfair! Still—how refute by words the charge that 
actions had acquiesced in? He had thought her mer¬ 
cenary. Well, had she not, all these years, taken his 
money? Money tossed her half-contemptuously. . . . 

The traffic officer had released the block. Horns 
were honking, engines were volleying. In a moment 
it would be too late. . . . Katherine felt suddenly 

sick of it all; sick of everything in her present life; 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


175 


longed for realities; had a queer impulse to arrest her 
father’s progress, to insist on explaining that she 
wanted to stop being sordid, to make the absurd appeal 
that they should be truly father and daughter. . . . 

The moment was past. Dickie honked his horn, 
started his engine, glanced over his shoulder at her 
with an enigmatical smile: “ Well—make hay while the 
sun shines, my dear! ” he said; and, with a dexterous 
turn of the wheel, he shot into the opening ahead of 
her, out to the left of the vehicles spreading out in 
the cleared road, and vanished. 

Katherine started her car slowly. She had a sense 
of irrevocable loss: as if this had been the last 
chance- 

“ How bad he looked! ” she caught herself thinking. 
“ Bad —and he can’t be much over fifty.” 

A phrase they use occurred to her: “ Breaking up.” 
Dickie was breaking up. 

His cryptic parting utterance recurred to her. 
“ Make hay while the sun shines! ” 

What had he meant? 

With what light she had on his private character, 
she supposed he meant, cynically: “ Have a good time 
while you can enjoy it. Soon you will be fifty, like 
me, and * breaking up ’! ” 

Strange advice from a father to a daughter! 

And yet, was he not a strange father of a strange 
daughter ? 

“ Make hay while the sun shines! ” . . . 

.Suddenly her life, dominated and bounded by Davis, 
seemed intolerably dull, and gray. . . . 



176 


THE MOULD 


And somewhere (but irrevocably beyond the hori¬ 
zons of a life dominated and bounded by Davis) lay 
sunlit lands—adventure—wide airs. 

( 6 ) 

The breaking of the engagement was a great relief 
to Davis’s friends and family. Malicious persons, 
especially those with marriageable daughters, hinted 
that Davis was also relieved. It was more than hinted 
that he was the one who had broken it off. Every¬ 
body had known what it meant when the wedding was 
first postponed. If Katherine really wanted him, she 
should have landed him while she could. She should 
never have attempted an engagement. She should 
have made an elopement of it, at the very first,—while 
Davis’s family were abroad. Probably Davis had been 
trying to let her down easily: he must have seen why 
she was marrying him; it was perfectly clear that it 
was not for love. He was to be congratulated on 
having got free so easily. 

Davis, himself, was so non-committal as to seem to 
have relapsed into woodenness. He turned an impas¬ 
sive front to the congratulatory insinuations of his 
friends. Or rather, he turned an impassive back; for 
he had gone to Seattle on the Company’s business; he 
was working sixteen hours a day, and seldom wrote 
more than a post-card. About a year later, he re¬ 
turned, and married one of the Sixteen. It was emi¬ 
nently an appropriate affair, and both families were 
very happy about it. . . . 

Katherine’s feelings, meanwhile, were (people said) 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


177 


more obvious. Her access of incredible recklessness 
measured accurately, people said, the degree of her 
chagrin at losing Davis. She smoked incessantly. 
She was out in her car almost all day, usually alone. 
She was repeatedly arrested for over-speeding. She 
shrugged her shoulders, and paid her fines indiffer¬ 
ently ; perhaps even a trifle ostentatiously. She 
boasted that she dreaded only one thing: having her 
license taken away. 

“ And sometime," remonstrated Angela, one after¬ 
noon at a session in the Graysons’ library, “ you’ll skid 
on a muddy road when you're going fifty miles an 
hour, and that will be the end of you! ’’ 

Baldie (verging, now, in spite of all his efforts, on 
the rank of Senior at Harvard University) was sitting 
by, on a low stool, twiddling a green felt hat between 
his stubby-fingered hands. Even Baldie looked seri¬ 
ous. “ Joy-riding ” was all right, as nobody knew 
better than Baldie: and if you paid for a joy-ride with 
a broken neck, why, at least you had had your money’s 
worth. But it seemed to him that Kat was taking the 
risk without the joy. 

“ Angy dear,’’ retorted Katherine, “ I should like 
nothing better! ’’ 

“ I hate you in your * Angy ’ mood,’’ remarked 
Angela placidly. 

Katherine laughed. 

“ And the sooner it happens the better pleased I 
shall be! Why not? What has life" (she spoke the 
word contemptuously) “for me? I’m bored all the 
time when I’m not in my car. I made seventy miles 


178 


THE MOULD 


the other night, on the Post Road. And it didn’t seem 
any faster than forty used to. Soon there won’t be a 
car made that can go fast enough to take me out of 
myself. Then I shall be perpetually bored. What a 
thought! But the difficult thing to do is really to set 
a date for one’s own decease. Why to-day more ap¬ 
propriately than to-morrow? Why to-morrow more 
appropriately than a week from to-morrow? And so 
the time slips by; and one follows the line of least 
resistance, which is to let one’s breathing and physical 
functioning go on. Anybody can live along; but it 
takes such an awfully definite act of will to accom¬ 
plish one’s decease! I don’t wonder the majority of 
people just keep on living along without rhyme or 
reason. 

“ If we were artists, we wouldn’t do that. We’d 
crush all the joy of living, the headiest wine of the 
grapes, into one mad cup to be drunk with songs and 
laughter in abandon. And then, at the first gray finger 
of a coming day of reckoning and disillusion, we 
should do as the Romans did: bare the artery to the 
lancet, and die beautifully.” 

“ Hot air,” said Baldie. 

“ No—poetry. A pagan poem,” said Katherine, 
dreamily. She blew a thin, curling wisp of smoke up 
into the air, watching it through half-shut eyes. 

“ I don’t see that there’s anything very poetical 
about running over a stone wall and being squashed 
under one’s machine,” said Angela, practically. 

“ No, of course not,” said Katherine. “ That’s what 
I am saying. Most of us follow the line of least 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


179 


resistance. We are not made of the same stuff as the 
Romans. We let ourselves go on breathing until 
Chance cuts us off. And Chance is not an artist. 
. . . But it takes a lot of responsibility off lots of 

people’s shoulders. . . . And then, after all, it has 
its compensations. I never speed down the dark 
country roads without the hope of a ditch or an un¬ 
railed bridge. I never race a train without the hope 
of an unexpected crossing. It’s the way I get my 
excitement.” 

“ Hot air! ” reiterated Baldie, manfully, though he 
felt little crinkly chills all up his spine. 

Angela continued her crocheting in silence. She 
was unimpressed to any great extent, any more, by 
Katherine’s oratory. Harold said that Katherine 
would get over these queer ideas if you gave her time. 
Harold said that what Katherine needed was a bunch 
of children to look after. And Angela had great faith 
in Harold’s opinion. Harold said that Katherine was 
spoiled, badly; and that what she needed was a hus¬ 
band who would bang her over the head with a stuffed 
club when she talked such nonsense. 


( 7 ) 

The last of the following May, the pink-and-gray 
villa was ready to be closed, upon Katherine’s depar¬ 
ture, the following day, with Mrs. Jordane for New 
York. Their passage was booked from that city to 
Liverpool. Katherine was tired of automobiling; she 
wished to travel. 


180 


THE MOULD 


She had only a hazy idea of her itinerary. The 
main thing was to be going. Perhaps they would take 
the Italian trip—perhaps not. She had not written- 
anybody. She thought it would be rather fun to 
make a flying visit to Naples and its environs and 
later write to Paolo telling him that they had been and 
gone; so sorry that—et cetera. Nothing, however, was 
decided so far ahead as that. 

The maids were paid off and discharged, the fur¬ 
niture was swathed in linen dust-covers, china and 
vases were packed away, the silver and most of 
Katherine’s jewelry were in the vault at her bank, her 
steamer-trunk was packed and gone, draperies and 
window-curtains were down, shutters were closed, 
doors and windows were boarded up. 

Early on the morning of their intended departure, 
Katherine and Mrs. Jordane were standing on the 
piazza, anxiously awaiting the arrival of a taxicab for 
which they had telephoned. The paper-boy came by, 
whistling merrily, and folding the paper in a hard 
wad, sent it hurtling through the air to the door-sill. 
Katherine called to him to tell him he would need to 
bring no more. She picked up the paper and opened 
it to look for the weather-forecast. On the front sheet 
she read in black head-lines: “ Millionaire thought to 
have Drowned Self, crazed by Business Cares— 
‘ Dickie * Howard found Dead in Bath-Tub.” 

Katherine sat down suddenly on the piazza-edge, 
there being no chairs. She was conscious of a numb¬ 
ness, as from a physical shock. 

Mrs. Jordane, peering over her shoulder at the page, 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 181 

cried out, “ Oh, my heavens! " The poor woman's 
first thought was: “ This puts off our trip." 

After a moment Katherine lifted the paper again 
and bent over the columns which described the 
tragedy. State Street, it seemed, would not be greatly 
surprised. It had been common talk, for some time, 
that Richard was “ breaking up." He had been in 
bad health for a year. Recently he had had an opera¬ 
tion, since which it had been observed that his nerves 
were gone to pieces. Katherine, remembering vividly 
her first sight, in the Montescue drawing-room, of her 
father, and her curious conception of him, at that 
time, as two distinct persons: the Dickie of the self- 
indulgent mouth and the Dickie of the fighting jaw, 
had now a chilling fancy that Dickie the good-fellow 
had at last betrayed Dickie the fighter into the hands 
of the Grim Enemy. 

Katherine was mentioned as the sole surviving rela¬ 
tive of the deceased; the ghastly coincidence of the 
suicide of both her parents was touched upon. This 
was the point that remained clear on her consciousness 
after all the rest had dropped away into a strange 
blur. 

“ It will only be a matter of time," she thought to 
herself. “ I shall end as they have ended. Then there 
will be no more of us-" 

She went into the villa, and took off her wraps. 
Up-stairs she raised some shades and threw open a 
window and looked out. A gray day. 

She got the novel from her traveling-bag which she 
had intended reading on the train, and sat down by 



182 


THE MOULD 


the open window and tried to read. But her mind 
was numb. Automatically—she lighted a cigarette. 

Sometime later, a handsome limousine turned in at 
her driveway beneath the porte-cochere. A sedate 
gentleman, garbed in black, alighted from it, and, at 
a sedate gait, approached the villa. It was the lawyer, 
come to break to her the official news of her father's 
death. 


( 8 ) 

Angela hurried to her friend as soon as she heard 
the news, and would have insisted on carrying Kath¬ 
erine home with her, but Katherine, stubbornly, would 
not go. The passages on the steamer were canceled; 
the idea of the trip postponed, pending the settlement 
of Richard Howard’s estate. 

Angela was wildly excited—an excitement which 
she felt it decorous to repress in Katherine’s presence. 
It was rumored that there was no will; if that was the 
case, then Katherine would get everything. Kathy, 
her dear chum Kathy, a multi-millionairess! Angela 
could hardly realize it! How wonderful it was—just 
like a fairy-tale! 

Katherine went taciturnly about the business of get¬ 
ting mourning suitable for the death of a father. 
Angela, who could not know the morbid idea which 
was obsessing her friend, was at first unable to ex¬ 
plain to herself Katherine’s deep and persistent de¬ 
pression over the loss of a father whom she 
had never known; till one day, by a flight of senti¬ 
ment, she soared to the theory that it was the very 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


183 


fact that Katherine had lost what she had never had, 
that made it so sad! After that she was more than 
ever tender with poor Kathy. . . . Yet sometimes 
she almost burst with the desire to ask Katherine if 
she had any idea of the exact extent of her father’s 
wealth. . . . 

In due season it transpired that there was no will: 
Angela hugged her friend ecstatically, in unselfish joy. 
She wondered how the heiress herself could be so 
apathetic, with millions almost within her grasp. She 
wondered, too, studying Katherine covertly now and 
then, whether it might be possible that there really had 
been something serious between Katherine and Paolo, 
and whether, perchance, Katherine might still care- 

Happy day-dreams, these of dear Angela. 

( 9 ) 

It took time to settle Mr. Howard’s affairs, which 
were in a shocking tangle. Apparently Dickie had, 
of late, been giving more and more time to pleasures; 
less and less to business. 

Katherine, leading a disheveled sort of existence 
alone with Mrs. Jordane in the villa, whose doors and 
down-stairs windows were still boarded up, awaited 
the outcome. 

In due season it transpired that Dickie had died in¬ 
solvent. Not only would there be no millions: the 
source of Katherine’s allowance, even, had vanished. 

This fact necessitated a considerable settling of her 
own affairs, in which Mr. Grayson kindly helped her, 
though he disapproved of her; for during the last two 



184 


THE MOULD 


years it had become increasingly evident to Katherine 
that ten thousand dollars a year is not anywhere near 
enough to live on. Consequently, she had got into the 
habit of running up mountains of bills, and, from time 
to time, dexterously applying her allowance at the 
points where it would do her the most good in extend¬ 
ing her credit. There could be no more of that now. 
The mountain, in toto, must be dealt with. 

In addition to this unpleasant fact there was an¬ 
other, no less so. Katherine’s first car had been a 
modest enough purchase; the last one, a marvel of line 
and form and speed, had come from overseas. She 
had had to have it; the allowance would by no means 
buy it; therefore she had mortgaged the villa, free and 
clear till then. So she could not count on its bringing 
anything to help with the mountain. The mortgagee 
merely foreclosed on it, gave her notice of the date by 
which she must have vacated the premises, and that 
was the end of that little matter. 

The private sale of her household furnishings and 
of her jewelry, however, very fortunately proved ade¬ 
quate to meet the demands of her creditors; and to 
pay off Mrs. Jordane, who, suffering a nervous col¬ 
lapse from acute disappointment, betook herself for a 
vacation to the house of a second cousin who was 
having difficulties with her domestic help. There was 
even a slight, inconsiderable remainder in cash. An¬ 
gela went with her to Mr. Grayson’s office to get the 
latter. 

“ I’m sorry it’s not more, Katherine,” Mr. Grayson 
said. He coughed pompously. “ Have you any plans ? ” 


HYGIENE AND HOT AIR 


185 


Katherine said she had no plans. 

'‘Of course, dear,” said Angela, “ you must stay 
with us till you are quite settled.” 

“ Thanks,” said Katherine. “ I’ll think about it, 
Angy. Maybe I will—I don't know.” 

She snapped her beaded bag shut upon the little 
bundle of bank-bills that Mr. Grayson had handed her. 

“ Of course you’re coming home with me to supper, 
anyway,” said Angela, as the friends descended the 
Subway stairs. 

Katherine shook her head. “ Not to-night.” 

“ You're never going out to the villa, all alone! ” 
cried Angela. 

“Why not, baby-face? laughed Katherine. 
“ There are no ghosts there! ” 

“Well, you’ll be over to-morrow for sure?” said 
Angela. 

“ Nothing is sure in this life, Angela,” replied Kath¬ 
erine, mockingly. 

(io) 

Alone in the pink-and-gray villa, she reviewed all 
the closed, empty rooms with their drawn blinds and 
echoing floors. She had been wrong in saying there 
were no ghosts. The villa was full of ghosts. . . . 

She descended by the stone steps to the street. There 
she paused and looked back, thoughtfully, up at the 
walled terraces and gray villa with its setting of pop¬ 
lar trees. She could scarcely see them. Nothing 
glimmered plain except a great white sign-board on 
the front lawn: “ This House for Sale.” 


CHAPTER IX 


A HOUSE FOR SALE 

(I) 

The streets she traversed grew narrow. Fine resi¬ 
dences gave place to small, cheap dwellings. Broad 
lawns dwarfed to unkempt plots of trodden soil. A 
reminiscent odor of beefsteak and fried onions hung 
about the dooryards. The sidewalk grew uneven and 
treacherous. Small dirty waifs trooped about the 
streets playing the evening games of squalid childhood. 
Misery and wretchedness sat on every step. They 
eyed her incuriously as she passed. She was not of 
their world. They were not interested in her. 

Katherine was not at first conscious of directing 
her steps, but a magnetic image dwelt steadily before 
her inner vision, drawing her. It was the river. 

She perceived, at last, what it was that was drawing 
her; and she acquiesced. There was no struggle. She 
saw, with a flash of clear sight, that this had been or¬ 
dained for her, by flesh and nerves and moral fibre, 
from the beginning: that she should end her life wil¬ 
fully. Wilful death, for her, was bred in the bone. 

Besides, she was inexpressibly disgusted with life. 
She had made such a mess of it. She had chased 
pleasure and found ennui. She had chased love and 
found disillusion. She had chased marriage and so- 

186 


A HOUSE FOR SALE 


187 


cial prestige and found nausea. She had chased Speed 
and come to the place where one must slow down or 
shoot off into space. 

She was also sick, with an utter loathing, of her¬ 
self. She was neither one thing nor another. She was 
neither good, nor consistently wicked. She was 
neither useful nor heartily frivolous. She had had 
her own way for twenty-three years, and her own way 
had mocked her. She had fought off and sneered at 
human affection, and yet now, down in the depths of 
her aching, empty heart, she found with disgust was 
one pang of regret—a passionate regret that in all her 
life there had been no one who really cared. 

To merge with the silent tide flowing deep and dark 
beneath the bridge where she now stood, seemed the 
only desirable thing left for her. She had made too 
great a mess of life and herself. There could be no 
rectification. There could be none, if for no other 
reason, because she wanted none. Her lip curled: she 
was not a penitent: disgust was a strong, a virile 
thing; penitence was flabby, white-livered. There 
could be no rehabilitation for such as her. There 
could only be an end. 

She stood leaning on the rail. Between her hands 
glimmered a crimson painted numeral—memento of 
some prankish collegian. The fancy crossed her 
brooding brain that when she passed out, she would 
not leave even so much of a mark as that upon life. 

Beneath the bridge, the silent tide was flowing deep 
and dark. She wondered if drowned bodies sink or 
float. She fancied herself floating in the half-depths, 


188 


THE MOULD 


an inert thing at last, stirred by the shifting currents 
beneath the placid surface, among the purplish smoky 
hues of the marsh; past the quiet lights of the town. 
How silently and swiftly It would slip along beneath 
the splashes of murky light on the water. How awe¬ 
somely God’s dawn that she should never see would 
come up, over the silent river guarding her secret in 
its bosom. 

She wondered how long it would be before they 
found that Thing; and whether It would sweep out to 
sea and never be found. Morgue or open sea, she was 
indifferent. It would all be over; she would have 
ceased caring about anything: long before that. 

She began to take off her coat; she struggled with 
the billowy silk, compressing it into neat folds; she 
laid it down on the bridge. On it she laid her jet- 
and-steel bag. On that she laid her gloves, snapped 
together and neatly folded. She lifted her hat from 
her head—and realized, for the first time, what she 
was really preparing to do. She paused, holding the 
hat motionless in mid-air. 

Before, she had been romancing; morbidly romanc¬ 
ing. 

Taking off her hat had shocked her rudely out of 
the romance. It had made the situation real. This 
self, this Katherine, the thing she had always lived 
with; or, this she, herself, behind which there was 
nothing—a few gulps of the black water down there, 
a few seconds of strangling and struggle, and then— 
no Katherine. 

No Katherine! Conception impossible to grasp. 


A HOUSE FOR SALE 


189 


Because all the season of her consciousness this Kath¬ 
erine had been the pivot of a whole universe. Im¬ 
possible to conceive all at once a pivotless universe. 
Possible imaginatively to annihilate space, substance; 
but not at once this self that imagines. It is a stu¬ 
pendous realization. 

She set down the hat. 

Now she was free; ready for the act. People were 
sometimes rescued. Sometimes they screamed, when 
they found themselves actually drowning; and the 
passer-by shouted for help and got them out. “ None 
of that! ” Katherine warned herself. “ There’s to be 
no screaming—and no swimming.” 

She looked about. The night was heavy with fog. 
No one could see far in it. She listened craftily. 
The distant whispers of Cambridgeport came to her 
ears: nothing nearer. 

Her heart gave a great leap. This, then, was Death! 

( 2 ) 

Life seems to take a satiric delight in anti-climax. 
The human heart salutes Death: and then discovers 
that Death is yet a great way off: and that in its pro¬ 
found emotion it is mocked. 

Katherine approached the rail, which she must climb 
over, and from the outer plank of whose base she 
must hurl herself. She set one foot on the middle 
board, grasped the top of the railing, and prepared to 
swing the other foot over the top. As she willed to 
lift this second foot from the solid planking of the 
bridge, a frightful shudder shook her, and left her 


190 


TEE MOULD 


otherwise motionless. Again she essayed the act, and 
again the same frightful shudder shook her, and she 
could not move her foot. Her body was like a 
thoroughbred horse, mad with terror of something 
ahead, to whom the whip is applied, and who will not 
jump sidewise nor back, but who dares not go on, 
and who only starts and trembles violently under the 
lash. 

She stepped down onto the bridge and meditated 
upon the unexpected balk. She could not understand 
it. It was not fear of death, for she was not conscious 
of any fear. It could not be fear of the water nor 
of the plunge, for she was used to the water, and to 
striking it from heights fully as great as this must be: 
for the bridge was old and low. It was as if her 
body realized to what her will had consigned it: as if 
the great primal instinct warned it. 

She considered what to do. She must manage it 
like a horse. She must blindfold it, and accustom it 
to the idea of moving forward step by step. She must 
cheat it. She said: “ This is as if I were going into 
the water after dark for a swim—a thing I have often 
done. There will be nothing new or terrifying. I 
shall jump off, very much as if from a pier. My feet 
will strike the water and I shall shoot down into it. 
Then I must breathe in, at once.” 

Her nerve-paths took this down. 

She repeated the formula. “ Soon I shall be ap¬ 
proaching the railing, I shall put one foot up and shall 
find myself on the outside, then I shall find myself in 
the water, and then I must breathe in.” 


A HOUSE FOR SALE 


191 


She repeated this over in her mind several times, 
and then it came true. She was deep under water, 
and she had breathed in. 

A frightful agony forced itself up into her head. 
Her mouth jerked open as if to grasp for air or give 
vent to a shriek of pain. She swallowed water. She 
struck out wildly to force herself up more swiftly to 
air. Air! Air! 

Then suddenly something clear and separate in the 
very-core of her mind where the agony did not reach, 
said, “ You are coming up too soon.” At the same 
instant, in the dark, she saw Paolo’s eyes, narrowed, 
amused. Her last sensation was of relaxing her arms, 
and of willing to breathe in. 

( 3 ) 

Somewhere high up in the air over the Charles River 
below the old Allston Bridge was Katherine; and she 
was watching something in the water. 

This something was a body and it was swimming 
with swift, purposeful strokes toward the bank. It 
swam with a powerful overhand stroke. 

Katherine thrilled to the strength and machine-like 
regularity of the stroke. Its muscles must be made 
of steel. She watched it with enthusiasm. It made 
no sound: its force was purposefully spent. Stroke 
by stroke it was gaining against the current that op¬ 
posed it. Plucky machine! 

At intervals one arm went down to drag something 
—some clinging weight—from its knees; then the 
stroke changed for a moment; then was resumed. 


192 


THE MOULD 


Every time that this occurred, Katherine was afraid 
that the struggle was at an end, and watched anxiously 
to see the dark arm dart out which meant that strength 
and heart had not yet failed the swimming thing. 

Sometimes the current dragged it back; sometimes 
it rushed it forward. Now she thought it would reach 
the bank; now she thought it had gone under; but then 
the arm shot out again, and the powerful steel snap 
of the stroke bore witness to the splendid equipment 
of the machine. She thrilled with pride—for this 
thing had been her body! 

And then, suddenly, the terrible race was over. 
She knew it instantly by the sudden relaxing of that 
fighting-stroke. The swimming body was out of the 
current. A long, quiet stretch of slow-moving water 
lay between the little dark ball which was its head, 
and the line of darkness which was the bank. The 
ball revolved in the water and slid quietly along, leav¬ 
ing a faint, even ripple. The body was swimming on 
its side, with the scissors stroke. Katherine knew 
that stroke well. She knew that that body could 
swim forever with that stroke. Most amazing feel¬ 
ings swelled in her as she watched, and realized that 
the fight was won. Pride and ecstatic applause and 
an amazing affection. How plucky it was—how loyal 
to her—that body! She felt an extraordinary up rush 
of joy, and warmth. 

Then everything blurred. . . . 

She was lying over the wrecked cross-piece of an 
old boat-landing on the marsh’s edge. Her face was 
resting in marsh mud. Her shoulders and head were 


A HOUSE FOR SALE 


193 


lower than her hips. She hung stranded across the 
rotten timber. Her limbs sagged, supine. The thin 
edge of the river, like a tongue, lapped her feet. 

She was deathly sick: that was the sum-total of her 
consciousness: this intolerable sickness. Yet it was a 
beneficent sickness: it wracked the river-water out of 
her. The evil smell of the marsh under her face 
helped; the position of her body helped; it emptied 
her. Nausea was succeeded by a lethargy and an in¬ 
difference ; her eyes were closed. 

But the ooze in which her cheek rested bothered her. 
It would not let her slip away to sleep. It crawled 
on her with her breathing; it stank. She dragged a 
hand up to wipe it off; she could not wipe it off; it 
troubled her; it destroyed her lethargy and her indif¬ 
ference. 

Gradually she realized that she was lying in it. 
She began to struggle up. Her hands sank over the 
wrists in the fetid abomination. But by grasping the 
timber, she got herself erect. She felt herself horri¬ 
bly sick again, but she would not give way to it, since 
to become sick meant to fall again into the noisome¬ 
ness from which she had escaped. 

She lifted one foot and set it down ahead of her. 
It sank with a sucking and gurgling sound into the 
black ooze. She experienced a sudden terror of sink¬ 
ing into it and strangling. . . . 

She fought off the panic. She forced herself to take 
another step—and another. She forced herself to 
go on, step by step. Sometimes it seemed as if she 
could not go on. . . . 


194 


THE MOULD 


Yet she went on. . . . 

Endlessly, it seemed. . . . 

Suddenly a dark obstruction loomed before her. 
It offered foothold. She climbed upon it, out of the 
dragging, quaking horror. She kept on climbing. 
She found herself free. 

Fear of the place where she had been, drove her 
forward some little way on a staggering run; then, 
with a gasp, she grasped at whatever might be solid 
within reach, and fell. . . . 

Slowly her mind resumed its functions. She was 
on her knees, lying against and clinging to a wooden 
structure of some sort. She drew herself back. Just 
opposite her eyes glimmered a crimson painted nu¬ 
meral—memento of some prankish collegian. 

She stared at it. It looked vaguely familiar. She 
had seen it somewhere. Where? 

She remembered. 

She rose to her feet. She was standing on the old 
Allston Bridge in precisely the same spot where she 
had stood two hours before and saluted Death. 

She perceived the anti-climax. 

Nothing had been altered by her much-agonized- 
over action of two hours before, except that about a 
hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of excellent clothes 
had been ruined. 


CHAPTER X 


DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 

(I) 

Katherine, convalescent from an attack of pneu¬ 
monia, lay in a neat, little white-enameled bed in a 
neat little sanitary room, and stared across sombrely 
at a rectangle of green elm-boughs and blue sky 
framed by a window-casement which was unsoftened 
by any unhygienic drapery. 

She was remembering Paolo Grayson’s amused, 
kindly eyes, and how he had said, indulgently: “ You’d 
jump heroically, and the water would get all in your 
eyes and ears and nose, and then someone would come 
along and pull you out, and you’d be so wet and drippy 
—and feel so small! ” 

Wasn’t this just about what had happened? She 
had posed as about to play the ancient Roman and 
make herself the arbiter of her own destiny; to rid 
the world and herself of that useless, disagreeable in¬ 
dividual, Katherine Howard. And actually she had 
merely succeeded in spoiling some good clothes, and 
in making herself a nuisance to everybody. 

She turned her hot face to the wall—the white, 
leering wall. 

She had set the key-note for tragedy, and farce 
had been enacted. 


195 


196 


THE MOULD 


She was glad that Paolo would never know—she 
was glad nobody would ever know (for she had kept 
it to herself)—what she had tried to do and how she 
had failed. To her tortured self-consciousness, the 
figure of herself, wading, in silk stockings and fine 
pumps, through mud and slime, to get back to the 
life she had so grandiloquently renounced, was a 
grotesque and humiliating spectacle. She burned to 
think how the sight of it would entertain Paolo. 

Rat-tat-tat! The door opened, and Dr. Abrams en¬ 
tered the room, followed by the head nurse in charge 
of his hospital. 

“ Well, brooding again! ” This was the doctor’s 
greeting, uttered in a non-committal tone. 

Katherine flushed. She hated Dr. Abrams. She 
hated him because he seemed entirely too unimpressed 
with the importance of Katherine Howard. At the 
same time, she could not help but admire him. The 
doctor was a Hebrew of a fine type, middle-aged, 
somewhat inclined to intellectual overdevelopment, 
possessed of a certain dry sympathy; but scarcely 
sympathetic enough to counterbalance the coldness of 
the diabolically clear eye he turned on people. His 
patients were usually afraid of him—often resented 
his brusquerie; but they always sent poste-haste to him 
when they were sick. He was an eminently success¬ 
ful man, both professionally and financially. He was 
scrupulous in his charities, having given more than 
the tenth of his income every year since the very first 
year he had begun his practice. He had few charity 
patients, preferring, like the majority of his race, to 


DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 197 


make money and then disburse it generously, rather 
than to forego making it. 

Katherine had never encountered anybody so force¬ 
ful, so keen, so cold. His force was the incisive, cut¬ 
ting force of the knife; not the clumsy, smashing 
force of the bludgeon. Katherine was powerless to 
combat it. The spoiled super-girl had at last met 
someone who was more than her match. Therefore, 
she hated him; and admired him. 

He stood by the foot of her bed now, eyeing her 
with the reflective, emotionless gaze which she re¬ 
sented. 

“ How do you expect to get well if you behave this 
way?” he inquired, after a few moments. 

Katherine turned her head away. “ I don't care if 
I don’t get well,” she said, in a muffled tone, raging 
secretly at the childish sound of her own speech. 

“ That's perfectly evident,” replied the doctor, drily. 

She looked at him wrathfully, but speechless. 

“ Of course I don't mind having you occupy this 
room as long as you need it, my dear young lady,” 
continued the doctor, in his cool, exasperating voice, 
“ but the fact is that I have a patient who is wait- 
in g- 

Her face flamed. “ By all means, then, let your 
patient have the room! ” 

“ My dear young lady,” interrupted the doctor, with¬ 
out haste, “ it serves no end whatever to talk like that. 
As a mere matter of professionalism, you will not be 
discharged from my hospital until you are entirely 
well.” 



198 


THE MOULD 


There was a considerable pause. The head nurse, 
her immobile gaze fixed upon the doctor’s face, at the 
mere flicker of an eyelid of his in her direction, slipped 
unobtrusively out of the open door. People even as 
wilful as this obstinate Miss Howard have been known 
to eat humble-pie, but seldom before witnesses. 

“ Very well,” said Katherine, stiffly, some moments 
after the nurse’s retirement, “ you have me, I guess. 
What do you want me to do ? ” 

“/ want-?” repeated the doctor, with a faintly 

interrogatory emphasis. 

Katherine flushed again. “ What must I do to free 
the room as soon as possible? ” 

The doctor looked at her thoughtfully for several 
minutes. “ Well, for one thing,” he said slowly, at 
last, “ you might take your medicines without kicking 
up a childish row every time.” 

“ Very well,” said Katherine, reddening. 

“ Then you might try to cooperate mentally with 
us. That would go a long way.” 

“ I don’t see,” objected Katherine, sullenly, “why 
you try to save me alive. If you knew what a miser¬ 
able fizzle as a human being I am-” 

“ A doctor doesn’t have a patient under observation 
for three weeks, as I have had you,” interrupted the 
doctor, amiably, “ without learning considerable about 
her.” 

“ Well—I’m a fizzle.” 

“ It certainly looks so.” 

“Well, then-” 

“ Well, then what ? ” 





DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 199 

" Well, then,” said Katherine, rather uncertainly, 
u why do you try to save me ? ” 

“ A matter of professionalism, Miss Howard. We 
never let a patient die whom we can save. No mat¬ 
ter how worthless.” 

Katherine looked suspiciously at him to see if he 
was joking, but he was not. She felt a trifle piqued. 

“ I suppose there are others,” she said sarcastically, 
“ occasionally, who are even more worthless than I! ” 

“ Oh, certainly! ” agreed the doctor, promptly. 
“ We get dope-fiends—neurotics—all sorts-” 

Katherine became yet redder. She was angry, and 
yet not angry. She felt sure that the doctor was de¬ 
liberately choosing his words in order to secure a 
certain reaction from her; and yet he secured that 
reaction just the same. 

“ What ‘ sort * would you say I am ? ” she asked, 
again sarcastically. 

The doctor looked at her fixedly and yet absently 
for some seconds, as if she were some kind of beetle. 

“ Are you asking me for a diagnosis ? ” he asked, 
mildly, at last. 

Though so mild, it was a challenge; and Katherine 
recognized it as such. “ I am! ” she flashed. 

“ Your malady is, Miss Howard,” said the doctor, 
in a thoroughly impersonal tone, “ too much ego in 
your cosmos—as Kipling so charmingly puts it—and 
too little work. Nothing else in the world, my dear 
young lady.” 

“ And the prescription ? ” inquired Katherine, with 
a would-be mocking little lift of the corner of a lip. 



200 


THE MOULD 


“ A decent interest in someone else—and the neces¬ 
sity of earning your bread and butter or starving/* 

“ Suppose I should prefer to starve ?” 

“ You wouldn’t/* 

“ No, I suppose I shouldn’t. I’m too big a coward/* 
Her tone was bitter. 

“ Rubbish ! ” retorted the doctor, bluntly. “ For 
one thing, you’re not a coward. Not one woman in 
twenty has the courage you have.’* 

In spite of herself, Katherine reacted pleasantly to 
this compliment from the lips of the usually uncom¬ 
plimentary diagnostician. 

“ For another thing/* continued the doctor, “ sui¬ 
cide is not a question either of courage or of coward¬ 
ice. It’s a question of anaemia—particularly moral 
anaemia. It’s a question of vitality. You can’t die— 
because you’re too full of vitality.’* 

“If I took cyanide of potassium-?” suggested 

Katherine, politely. 

“ You wouldn’t take it—that’s the answer. You’re 
one of these people who make a big success of life in 
the end, because they can’t stand it to fizzle along; and 
they usually discover—somewhere in the decade be¬ 
tween twenty and thirty ’*—the doctor gave her a slow 
smile, and Katherine dropped her eyes hastily, “ that 
they can’t die. Then they get down to brass tacks— 
and make things move! ** 


(2) 

“ I hate your doctor,’’ declared Katherine petulantly, 



DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 201 

to Baldie, when the latter brought a boxful of Ameri¬ 
can beauties to the sanatorium that afternoon. 

“ Tell us some news ! ” retorted Baldie. “ What’s 
the matter with him now ? ” 

“ Oh—he makes me sick! ” replied Katherine, rather 
vaguely. 

Baldie laughed. “ What’s he been telling you the 
truth about to-day ? ” 

Katherine scowled—then smiled. 

She was sitting up in an invalid’s chair, wearing a 
borrowed rose-colored negligee of Angela’s and a fas¬ 
cinating boudoir cap to match, and she looked un¬ 
usually well. She told him what the doctor had said. 

Baldie chuckled. “ Little Abie sure doesn’t mind 
what he says! ” he commented. “ Wonder how he’d 
diagnose my trouble? Heard from my exams to-day. 
Flunked again! ” 

Katherine said, rather unfeelingly, “ I should think 
you’d be used to that by now! ” 

Baldie suddenly became serious. “ Well, it means 
the jig’s up this time. Dad said last time if I flunked 
again the scholastic groves and avenues would know 
little Baldie no more. And as Dad pays the bills, 
I guess Dad knows! ” Baldie looked rather lugu¬ 
brious. 

“ What will you do now then? ” She smiled cynic¬ 
ally. “ Be the gay and dashing waster, I sup¬ 
pose ? ” 

“ Never think it! ” retorted Baldie, dolorously. 
“ I’m to go to work! ” 

“Work! Baldie! You! Break it gently! ” 


202 


THE MOULD 


Baldie nodded. Between his fingers he twiddled a 
little swagger-stick that some girl had given him on 
his last birthday. 

“You, to go to work? Can it be true?” mocked 
Katherine. 

“It can,” lamented Baldie. “Worse: it are! Cut 
off with a shilling—that’s wot hi am! Me monthly 
allowance has stopped—ceased—terminated—‘ there 
ain’t no such animal ’ any more. I enter upon me 
menial labors next Monday morn—at fifteen dollars 
per week—and upon this aforesaid fifteen dollars, I 
live, move, and have my being henceforth.” 

Katherine gasped, “ Baldie! But it can’t be 
done! ” 

“ It’s got to be done, Dad says.” Baldie grinned 
ruefully. “ And when Dad says so, it’s usually so.” 

“ Where are you going to work ? With your fa¬ 
ther? ” 

“ * With ’ is good! ” commented Baldie, with keen 
appreciation. “ I’m going to work in the old man’s 
plant, if that’s what you mean! In the shop—at the 
veree bottom—oh, ta! ” He waved the swagger-stick 
gracefully. 

“ Why didn’t you try to get a better job somewhere 
else ? ” demanded Katherine. 

Baldie looked at her commiseratingly. “ You don’t 
know much about getting jobs, my child.” 

“But certainly-” objected Katherine. 

“ And again, certainly not! ” interrupted Baldie. 
“ Fifteen dollars, me child, is a princely stipend for a 
young man who has taken six years to flunk out of 



DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 203 


Harvard, and has nothing but his beauty to recom¬ 
mend him to an unfeeling world/’ 

Katherine looked a little incredulous. Surely 
Baldie was mistaken! All the same, his positiveness 
made her slightly uneasy. 


(3) 

The following Monday evening, Baldie came again 
to see her. 

“ Behold the horny-handed son of toil! ” he said, 
announcing himself with a flourish. 

Katherine looked him over, cautiously. “ You don’t 
look any different,” she remarked. 

Baldie regarded the trousers of his sixty-dollar suit 
with complacency. “ You didn’t expect my clothes 
to wear out at once, did you?” he inquired. “Wait 
till they do—and I buy a new trousseau out of the 
surplus from fifteen dollars a week! Believe me, girl, 
when that sad day comes, even the eyes of love will 
be apt to perceive a difference in my noble appear¬ 
ance ! ” 

“How do you like working?” inquired Katherine, 
a trifle anxiously. 

Baldie winked. “ You know me, Kat! ” he replied, 
cryptically. “ I like work just about like a cat likes a 
bath! ” 

“ What do you have to do ? ” Katherine’s thirst for 
information was unusual. 

“ Feed a piece of cowhide into a slot and shove a 
lever.” 

“ That all ? ” 


204 


THE MOULD 


“ That’s all—till the next time.” 

“ That sounds easy enough.” 

" Oh, it is! ” 

Katherine was thinking to herself, “If Baldie gets 
fifteen dollars for doing a simple little thing like that, 
I can certainly earn fifty or sixty, at least,—in some 
line.” 

( 4 ) 

The next morning Angela came, bringing her Irish 
crochet to occupy herself with. Angela had been very 
faithful in her visits during Katherine’s convalescence. 
She had not been particularly cheerful company, how¬ 
ever. At first, being under the impression that Kath¬ 
erine had got her pneumonia by going out riding with 
Baldie in the night air without a wrap, she had felt 
called upon to show considerable severity. As she 
pointed out to Katherine, now that the latter was in 
reduced circumstances, she could not afford such in¬ 
dulgences as were likely to let her in for doctor’s bills 
and so forth. 

“ Oh, you won’t have to pay it, Angy! ” Katherine 
had retorted maliciously. “ I still have some 
means-” 

“ Well, anyway-” Angela had persisted; but the 

starch had gone out of her severity. 

This phase being over, however, another depressing 
one replaced it. Angela and Harold were on the outs, 
of late. It looked as if their engagement might 
scarcely stand the strain they were putting upon it. 
Angela’s morning conversations were mainly bulletins 
of the latest developments in the quarrel. Papa Gray- 




DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 205 


son was thinking of retiring from business. Paul be¬ 
ing quite impracticable as a successor, Mr. Grayson 
felt that he would like to place his interest in the 
hands of his son-in-law to be. Harold, however, was 
pig-headedly devoted to the idea of entering the min¬ 
istry. He had been called to a small suburban church, 
and was to take charge of it the first of August. An¬ 
gela wished him to yield to her father’s judgment 
and take over the business. Mr. Grayson was willing 
to give him three years to learn it—and the General 
Manager was perfectly competent to run it anyway; 
all Harold would have to do would be to fatten upon 
the unearned increment. Angela said that if Harold 
loved her he would do it. Harold replied he could 
not love her so much, loved he not honor—by which 
he meant his faithfulness to his divine call—more. 
Therefore the strain. It was a deadlock. Angela 
cried a good deal, in Katherine’s company, for though 
she realized that Harold was entirely in the wrong, 
she loved him dearly, should never love anyone else, 
and, if the engagement should be actually broken, she 
should not care to live. 

“ Really, Kitty,” she had remarked solemnly, one 
morning when the outlook was especially gloomy, “ I 
keep remembering some of the things you used to say. 
I didn’t sympathize with them then; but now I sol¬ 
emnly believe that if Harold and I are really parted, 
I shall kill myself ! ” 

“ Oh, no, you won’t! ” retorted Katherine, with a 
laugh. “Still, Angy,” she added, “you’d make a 
sweet corpse! ” 


206 


THE MOULD 

Angela started uncomfortably. Katherine laughed. 

“ But, Angy,” Katherine had continued, “ why don’t 
you let Harold be a minister if he wants to ? I should 
think that would appeal to you! You used to like it 
well enough! ” 

Angela lifted her large, luminous eyes to Katherine. 
“ I did,” she replied, gravely. “ It would be something 
of a sacrifice for me to give it up, too. But I feel 
that Papa has been so good to me always, and now if 
there’s any way I can make it up to him—and he will 
feel so badly if the business has to go out of the fam¬ 
ily—Paul has been such a cruel disappointment to him 
-—and think how much good we could do with the 
money! ” 

Katherine had laughed. “ Oh, you sweet humbug! ” 
she had exclaimed. 

This morning, however, Angela burst in jubilantly. 
Harold had yielded, at last. It had been the argument 
of how much good he could do with the money that 
had got him. He had resigned his church, and was 
beginning “ at the bottom ” to learn the business, the 
unearned increment of which was to be, by his ex¬ 
penditure, later, such a blessing to suffering human¬ 
ity. 

Katherine, too, had a piece of news. If she kept on 
as well as she was going now, she might be discharged 
in a week or so. The sore spot in her bronchial tubes 
was all gone; it was now merely a case of getting up 
her strength. 

“ How splendid! ” murmured Angela. “ Of course 
you’ll come straight to us, Katherine,” she added. 


DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 207 

“Of course I’ll not!” retorted Katherine crisply. 
Angela’s tone was already beginning to have the un¬ 
mistakable inflection of the patron. “ Did you ever 
get the impression that I was a grafter, Angy?” 

“Katherine dearest! As if it would be grafting!” 
remonstrated Angela. “ As if,” a little vexed, 
“ Mother and I were the kind to have such thoughts! 
And, anyway, how absurd! Haven’t you often visited 
us for weeks at a time-? ” 

“Ah, but then I didn’t have to,” said Katherine, 
shrewdly. 

“ Well, what are you going to do ? ” inquired Angela, 
rather tartly. No one likes to have a kindly offer— 
especially a kindly offer that one has rather dreaded 
making and has felt one’s self rather meritorious in 
making—flung back slap in one’s face, without even a 
thank you. 

It is true, Katherine always had been rude, and 
Angela should have been used to it; had, in fact, been 
used to it; but now it somehow seemed different. It 
is one thing to fling aside, with light informality, an 
invitation to visit; quite another so to treat an offer 
of actual food and shelter. Angela had proposed mak¬ 
ing almost a sister of Katherine in her misfortune; 
and Katherine, not knowing which side her bread was 
buttered on, evidently, had flouted her in the very start. 

“ Going to work,” Katherine replied calmly, to An¬ 
gela’s question. 

“Work!” echoed Angela. “Well, of course that 
is the sensible thing, dear. Kitty Matthewson was 
telling me, only the other day, that a friend of hers 



208 


THE MOULD 


was telling about some woman who has just come out 
of a sanatorium and wants a companion. Nothing to 
do, you know, and, Kitty thought, fine wages. I’ll 
just call Kitty up to-night and ask her who-” 

“ You don’t need to bother, Angela,” interrupted 
Katherine, in a voice which had hardened slightly. 
“ I think I’ll just look around a little myself, thank 
you.” 

' “ You don’t mean you won’t let us—won’t let Fa¬ 
ther—help you get-? ” 

“ It’s awfully good of you; and awfully good of 
your father,” said Katherine. “ You’ve all done too 
much for me already.” 

“ Oh—if that’s all! ” Angela breathed a sigh of re¬ 
lief. “ Well, maybe, if you’d rather, we could get you 
a job as social secretary. That’s a grand job to have. 
You meet so many interesting people, and do so many 
interesting things—and you’re not at all declassed, you 
know. I’ve just been reading a book written by a 
social secretary to some social leader; it describes all 
the New York society people, only under assumed 
names, of course; it is perfectly thrilling;—published 
anonymously, of course. In the end she is going to 
marry the society leader’s lawyer, or something of 
that kind, I think. Now I should think Father would 
surely know—only of course you haven’t stenog¬ 
raphy,” Angela’s face fell. “ Still, perhaps we could 
find you a place where you wouldn’t need stenog¬ 
raphy-” 

“ Really, Angela, you don’t understand at all,” in¬ 
terrupted Katherine, stubbornly. “ I am going to find 





DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 209 


something for myself. I’m not going to take some¬ 
thing that is handed out to me half as charity because 
I am the unfortunate schoolmate of Mr. Grayson’s 
daughter. I am going out on my own.” 

Angela took a look at the compressed lips and obsti¬ 
nately set chin of her friend, and capitulated. 

“ Well, I think you are unwise, Kathy,” she said 
gently. “To throw away my Father’s help. The best 
positions are always got through personal influence, 
you know. You can’t hope for much if you go out on 
your own, as you put it. Independence is all very 
well, Kathy dear, but—why not get your job first, and 
then start being independent ? ” 

“ Because then it would be too late! ” cried Kath¬ 
erine, smiling. 

" Why too late ? ” 

“ Because then I should be under obligations to all 
the people that helped get me the job.” 

“ How perfectly absurd! ” said Angela. 

“ Beside, I couldn’t get a job of social secretary 
without stenography; don’t fool yourself, Angy, about 
that; and as for companion—good grief, Angy, 
wouldn’t you be sorry for the person that had me 
for a companion? She’d keep me just about three 
days—and if she didn’t discharge me at the end 
of the time, I fancy I’d be ready to discharge my¬ 
self ! ” 

“ Well,” began Angela, raising her eyebrows, “ of 
course-” 

“ Beggars can’t be choosers. Yes, I know. But I’m 
not going to be a beggar. That’s just the point.” 



210 


THE MOULD 


“ Well, anyway you'll come and stay with us till 
you get something? ” 

Katherine shook her head. 

“ But Kat! ” Angela's voice was sharpened with 
genuine irritation. “ This passes absurdity! What 
else can you do ? Surely you can’t have much of your 

money left after paying- What will you live 

on?” 

“ On my fat, if necessary,” replied Katherine 
grimly. 

Angela sighed. “ You always were perfectly hope¬ 
less, Katherine.” 

She rose to go. “ Well, I hope you’ll change your 
mind, when it really comes to the point. I really 
think that after all Father has done for you, you really 
owe it to him to consult-” 

Katherine laughed. 

Angela reddened. “ Well, good-bye, Kathy,” she 
said, kissing her friend. “ I only hope you’ll never 
regret casting off your friends this way! ” 

“ But then you could never say 4 1 told you so ’! ” 
retorted Katherine, teasingly. “Never mind, Angie! 
After all, if I starve, it's my funeral, you know! ” 

“ Which is another way,” said Angela, walking out, 
very red and indignant, “of saying None of my 
business! ” 


( 5 ) 

Katherine told Baldie all about the near-quarrel the 
next time that horny-handed son of toil called. 

Baldie scratched his head. “ Really going out on 




DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 211 


your own, are you, Kat ? ” he inquired. “ Well, I hope 
you aren’t going to cross me off your calling-list, 
too ? ” 

“Well, I just am!” retorted Katherine, cheerfully. 
“ I’m going to cross everybody off! I’m going to start 
with a clean slate! ” 

Baldie whistled. 

“ I don’t want to butt in, Kat,” he said, after a few 
moments. “ But how about the finances? You know 
you may not get anything right away, and even if you 
do, it is sure to be a week at least before you sight 
your pay-envelope.” 

“That’s just where I want you to help me!” an¬ 
nounced Katherine. 

Baldie brightened visibly. “ Shoot! ” he said. “ The 
sky’s the limit! If I haven’t got it, I’ll borrow it; and 
if I can’t borrow it, I’ll steal it! ” 

Katherine smiled; a very warm, friendly smile. 
“Nothing so vampirish as that, Baldie! I just want 
you to sell some old clothes for me.” 

Baldie stared. 

“ Aren’t there people who buy second-hand 
clothes ? ” asked Katherine, a trifle impatiently. 

“ Sure there are,” said Baldie, “ but-” 

“ Well, I have five trunks of clothing that might 
just as well be sold as eaten up by the moth. What 
use will a—a cash-girl have for Liberty satin evening 
gowns and chiffon negligees? There must be thousands 
of dollars’ worth of stuff in those trunks! Why, my 
fur coat alone cost twelve hundred dollars.” 

“ Ye-es,” admitted Baldie, “but-” 




212 


THE MOULD 


“ But nothing! ” retorted Katherine briskly. “ Will 
you, or will you not, undertake to sell them for me ? ” 

“ Why, of course I will, Kat, but—how much do 
you expect to get for them ? ” 

“ Well, I certainly ought to get fifteen hundred or 
so at the very least.” 

“ Don’t you think it! ” said Baldie. 

And Baldie was right. Fur coat and all, Katherine 
got an even five hundred dollars. Five hundred dol¬ 
lars ! It was robbery! . . . 

Still five hundred dollars is enough to live on till 
one establishes one’s self in a modest wage-earning po¬ 
sition; and all might have been well, had Dr. Abrams 
known that this was all his wilful patient had behind 
her. But unfortunately Katherine had not confided 
her financial difficulties to him, nothing in her manner 
suggested poverty, and his bill almost swallowed up 
the whole five hundred. 

Baldie wanted to pay the bill. 

Katherine refused. 

“ It is sweet of you, Baldie,” she said, over the tele¬ 
phone on which she called him up at luncheon-time, 
“ but you can’t do it. I’m going to pay my own hos¬ 
pital bills, so you may as well make up your mind to 
it.” 

Baldie said something about Katherine’s independ¬ 
ence which should not have been said, even in the 
hearing of no other lady than the operator. 

Katherine, however, was determined. She was not 
going to start out under obligation to anybody—not 
even Baldie. She wanted a clean slate. She endeav- 


DISPOSING OF OLD CLOTHES 213 

ored, though with scant success, to convince him, that 
evening, that it was not in insult to his fifteen dollars 
a week that she would not let him pay her bills. “ I’d 
insist just the same if you were a millionaire! ” she 
cried. 

“ Kat! I can’t stand it! ” burst out Baldie. “ I 
get your point of view, all right, but you don’t know! 
You don’t know what’s ahead of you! It isn’t going 
to be so much of a cinch as you think, getting a job! 
You’ve got to let me pay it, Kat! ” 

“ How long since a young man can force his money 
on a girl ? ” inquired Katherine coldly. 

“ Of course- But-” He fumbled in his 

breast-pocket. “ Here’s five hundred dollars. Take it 
as a loan, then—at interest, if you like—take part of 
it-” 

Katherine smilingly shook her head. 

Baldie slouched down despondently in his chair. He 
knew, less from his brief contact with the working- 
world as a unit in it than from a much longer previous 
contact with it as a gilded outsider, pretty much what 
was ahead of Katherine, an untrained, overindulged 
girl trying to “ break in ” where there are too many 
already. 

“ Well, at least promise me that if you get in a 

pinch, you will come to me- There! See! Your 

money’s in an envelope, and there it’ll stay, ready for 
you any time, without even a trip to the bank ——” 

Katherine interrupted impatiently. “ No, no! Baldie, 
don’t you see that the issue is psychological? If I’m 
going out on my own, it must be a genuine situation, 







214 


THE MOULD 


not a play. I must know that if I don’t earn my daily 
bread I shall genuinely starve: not that if I fail I can 
slump back into the kind arms of my friends! If I 
feel that way, I shall fail! I must erect now a barrier 
of my own pride that there’ll be no crossing, later! 
I’m going to cut loose—absolutely—from everybody. 
You—Angela—nobody—will even have my address—• 
till I’ve made good! If you never hear from me 
again, you’ll know I went under! But if I go under, 
it’s going to be a genuine shipwreck—not ‘ camera- 
stuff.’ And if I make good, it’s going to be a genuine 
achievement—the doing of K. Howard herself, and 
no one else! And I’m going to make good, Baldie! 
Never doubt that! ” 

Baldie held out his hand. “ Put it there, old pal! ” 

Katherine met his sturdy grip with one as firm. 

“ I sort of understand how you feel about it, Kat. 
You’ve got to go the whole hog or none. Well, I 
won’t stand in your way. But if you do get in a tight 
place, ever, remember that over in Birmingham a 
good-for-nothing fellow feeding cowhide into a ma¬ 
chine eight hours a day is—oh, darn it all! ” 

And Baldie, becoming inarticulate, suddenly gave 
her hand a last convulsive wrench, and bolted out of 
the sanatorium reception-room and out of the sana¬ 
torium, without a good-night or a good-bye. And 
when he tried to get her on the ’phone the next morn¬ 
ing at breakfast, to beg another farewell interview, he 
learned that she had already gone, and that no one at 
the sanatorium had any address at which to reach her. 



CHAPTER XI 


ADVENTURE 

(l) 

Five o’clock of the same day, in a South Boston 
boarding-house which had been recommended to Kath¬ 
erine by the Y. W. C. A., that omniscient adviser of 
young women in Katherine’s situation. 

Four walls the like of which, before that afternoon, 
she had never pictured to herself, now bounded Kath¬ 
erine’s horizon. 

The walls were covered with wall-paper of a prim¬ 
rose pattern. It must have originally been the most 
ingenuous, the naivest, of wall-papers, but now, alas, 
it bore the marks of sophistication upon it. Over the 
small imitation-oak table were spattered ink-spots: a 
perfect cataract of ink-spots: sins of some lean-bellied 
writer of rejected manuscripts goaded to madness by 
the obstinacy of a cheap fountain-pen. About the 
wash-stand were gray blotches of dried dirty water 
recklessly flung about: sins, perhaps of some primitive- 
mannered mechanic who had used to wait for his 
wash till he got home. And here and there were 
patches of plaster, rubbed bald: ditches gouged out: 
sins of occupants with individual tastes in the arrange¬ 
ment of commode and chiffonier. 

The records of Katherine’s predecessors were not 

215 


216 


THE MOULD 


all on the walls, either. Everywhere, on all the flat 
wooden edges of things, were innumerable small 
scooping-out burns: reminiscent of innumerable ciga¬ 
rettes; and on the floor by the bed was a large round 
hole in the carpet and a charred circle on the planks 
where a conflagration, it would seem, had been nar¬ 
rowly averted by the providential rousing of the 
drowsy smoker-in-bed. 

Then, on the gas-jet were spatters of grease, as 
from a ten-cent frying-pan held above the light; and 
in the edge of the little pine mantel-shelf and in the 
window-frame diagonally opposite, were two nails and 
a dangling remnant of string—mute witnesses to the 
pathetic economies of some extra-impecunious lodger. 

Katherine sat in a faded and ragged upholstered 
armchair—the sort that rocks on a squeaky standard 
—and looked about her. Her hair was tousled, her 
sleeves were rolled up, she was damp with perspira¬ 
tion, and dusty. Still her look was a look of high 
satisfaction. 

She liked her state of tousled hair, bare arms, per¬ 
spiration and dust. They helped make the Adventure 
real; and the sense of adventure was, as yet, upper¬ 
most in her. Her tousled hair, her bare arms, the 
perspiration and the dust helped make the adventure 
real, as costume and wig help the amateur actor to a 
realization of his part; and what thrill is there in an 
adventure unless it possesses the illusion of reality? 
What thrill is there in an adventure if one feels that 
at any moment one can, by mere act of will, step out 
of it? The thrill comes from the very feeling that 


ADVENTURE 


217 


one has voluntarily stepped into an incongruous sit¬ 
uation which has closed round one, and from which 
one does not know whether one will- come out alive 
or not; in which one does not know what will happen 
to one. 

Probably to no occupant before Katherine, had this 
commonplace room been other than commonplace: to 
Katherine it was romantic, the fitting scene of adven¬ 
ture. Its utter shabbiness, the reminiscent smears 
upon it, its carelessness of them, made it romantic. 
The ink, the burns, the dilapidated clothes-line, peo¬ 
pled it with ghosts—ghosts of the tenants of another 
world from Katherine's, among whose phantoms her 
presence was a romantic incongruity. Romantic in 
precisely the same way was the hanging of her clothes, 
the plain ones she had not sold, which yet bore visibly 
the stamp of a severe elegance, in the shallow, papered 
closet; and the laying of her quantities of lingerie, 
gloves, collars, and blouses in the cranky shallow 
drawers of a little pine bureau which assuredly had 
never before held such lingerie, such gloves, such col¬ 
lars, such blouses. 

And, as the final touch of romance and reality, on 
her table lay a small pile of newspapers—three of 
them. She had brought them in with her so as to look 
at the Female Want Ads after dinner. 

She bathed: a cold sponge-bath; and dressed. By 
then it was six o'clock, and she went down to dinner. 

The boarding-house dining-room was already well 
filled with diners: hot, sticky-looking men in wool 
suits; fagged-looking women, mostly spinsters, in 


218 


THE MOULD 


slightly mussed shirt-waists; two or three bobbed¬ 
haired girls in elaborate unsuitable dresses. The clat¬ 
ter of knives and forks and crockery and conversa¬ 
tion rose to assail Katherine as she descended the 
staircase. As she entered the dining-room a lull re¬ 
ceived her: the business of eating and conversing be¬ 
ing somewhat frankly suspended to permit a brief sur¬ 
vey, from all parts of the room, of the new arrival. 

The dinner was typical of its kind. The ubiquitous 
fly ran greedy competition to the other boarders; the 
dishes were thick and spoke rather too frankly of a 
sketchy washing; the regular guests, who had never 
known anything better, grumbled at this and that; but 
to Katherine it was all an adventure, part of the great 
Adventure, and she ate with zest. 

( 2 ) 

Three weeks of tramping the streets made the ad¬ 
venture real enough. There was nothing that could pos¬ 
sibly be considered fictitious about job-hunting in mid¬ 
summer. Everywhere it was the same story over and 
over. Midsummer was the worst time of the whole 
year to get work. Employers everywhere were laying 
off help, rather than taking on extra. About Septem¬ 
ber they might have something for her; but just now 
there was nothing. 

Almost everybody was fairly kind to her. Once in 
a while, advice was proffered gratis: and it was always 
to the effect that it would be highly advisable for her 
to take some special course or other, and fit herself 
for some definite occupation. A business course—a 


ADVENTURE 


219 


course in stenography—a course in dressmaking, in 
millinery, in domestic science—almost any kind of 
course would improve her chances. 

But how could she take any kind of a course when 
she had not money enough to live on while she was 
taking it, not to mention paying the tuition fee ? 

One kindly adviser suggested borrowing the money, 
if she could. 

But this she would not do. 

Three weeks of job-hunting, followed by one week 
of book-agenting (net proceeds, one dollar of com¬ 
missions), followed by one week of trying to break 
into the movies and finding the latter industry a blank 
wall. 

On the thirty-fifth night, secure in her room, she 
investigated her safety-pocket, where she had been 
carrying her slender capital. When she had counted 
up the contents, and added to this total the sum of 
the small change in her pocketbook, she felt a queer 
sinking sensation in her stomach. 

For the first time since she had entered the world 
of the wage-earner she did not bathe and change her 
blouse before dinner. She had no heart to. She went 
down just as she was: hot and sticky and crumpled. 

The dining-room was already filled with diners: hot, 
sweaty-looking men in wool suits; fagged-looking spin¬ 
sters in mussed shirt-waists and shiny skirts; two or 
three bobbed-headed girls in elaborate unsuitable 
dresses. The clatter of knives and forks and crockery 
and tongues assailed her as she entered. The ubiq¬ 
uitous fly ran a horrific competition with the human 


220 


THE MOULD 


feeders, and sickened her. The dishes were thick, 
and spoke too clamorously of a sketchy washing, so 
that she could hardly swallow the food off them. The 
boarders about her, who had never known anything 
better, grumbled, grumbled, grumbled, with wearisome 
futility. She ate the least she could subsist on. 

For the dinner was no longer an adventure. Kath¬ 
erine had lost the sense of adventure. The book¬ 
agenting (a hideous experience) had, as Baldie would 
have phrased it, kicked the Adventure in the slats. 


CHAPTER XII 


BRASS TACKS 

(I) 

The inevitable temptation finally assailed her to 
communicate with Baldie and borrow some money. 
But the barrier of pride which she had built behind 
her, prevented. 

She had stepped, voluntarily, into this situation; but 
she could not step out of it. It had closed soundlessly 
behind her, and even the seam of its joining was in¬ 
visible. She did not know whether she could master 
it or not; or whether it would eventually close in, like 
Poe's horror-chamber, and crush her. 

Instead of communicating with Baldie, she took up 
once more her tramping of the streets, boldly and 
futilely invading offices and stores, asking for work. 
Sometimes she was rebuffed with a fair degree of 
courtesy—even kindliness—sometimes with none. 
But she was invariably rebuffed. No one had any 
work for her. It looked as if the walls were closing 
in. For several days now she had had no luncheons. 
Her board was paid in advance till the end of the 
week; but when the end of the week came, unless she 
had a position and could stave off her landlady till 
pay-day, she would have to get out. And then where 
would she go? 


221 


222 


THE MOULD 


She stopped walking up and down the streets, in¬ 
terrupting busy men in offices. There was nothing 
to be got at, that way. 


( 2 ) 

It was Friday. Her next week’s board would be 
due to-morrow. 

The day was broiling hot. The midsummer sun, un¬ 
veiled, poured down from a molten sky, and was re¬ 
flected in a killing glare from blistering pavements. 
The clang of busy ambulances threaded the web of 
the city’s hum like a shuttle with a vivid strand of 
scarlet traversing a dull gray woof. 

Katherine stood, aimless, in the heat of Washington 
Street. 

It was near luncheon time, but there was to be no 
luncheon for her. 

What should she do to pass away the rest of the 
day ? Her feet, driven to do hard service in unsuitable 
gear, tortured her. She would go somewhere and sit 
down. She had come to the place marked No 
Thoroughfare. 

The friendly dusk of a wide, deep doorway lured 
her. It was Christie’s. She might go into Christie’s 
waiting-room and sit as long as she wished. True, in 
Christie’s many of her old associates were wont to 
shop; but there was little chance that any of them 
would be in the city at this season—especially on such 
a day. 

She stepped inside. The coolness of the vast in¬ 
terior—it seemed cool when one first came into it 


BRASS TACKS 


223 


from the outside—received her graciously. She was 
making her way along the aisle by the lace-counter 
toward the elevator, when suddenly, right beside her, 
a queer gasp sounded—a gasp that was more like a 
groan. There was a shrill exclamation; the sound of 
a body slipping gently to the floor; then turmoil. A 
salesgirl had fainted. An excited crowd sprang up 
from nowhere, jamming Katherine against the counter. 
The salesgirl lay just beneath her eyes—white and 
motionless, like death. Katherine had never seen any¬ 
one lie so long in a faint before. A floor-walker 
wormed his way through the jam—officiously pushed 
the crowd back—two of the store-boys came running 
—the three of them lifted the limp form—carried it 
away—through crowds that fell apart respectfully— 
enjoyably thrilled. 

Katherine followed. 

The salesgirl was carried to the emergency-room, 
off the ladies’ waiting-room, where there was a nurse. 

Katherine sat down in the waiting-room. 

After what seemed a long time, men appeared with 
a stretcher. They vanished into the emergency-room. 
A crowd again formed. The door reopened. The 
men with the stretcher reappeared. The stretcher 
bore something covered with a blanket. 

“ Is someone dead, nurse?” screamed a hysterical 
woman in the crowd. 

“ Dead ? ” echoed the nurse crisply. “ No; but she’s 
had a stroke. Heat-prostration.” 

The women began to murmur among themselves, 
women who had never seen each other before talking 


224 


THE MOULD 


to each other like old acquaintances: “ Who was it ? M 
—“ Poor thing! No wonder! Such a day! I 
thought I should have a heat-prostration myself! ”— 
“ Was it a customer or one of the girls? ”—“ A sales¬ 
girl, I believe.”—“ One of the salesgirls at the lace- 
counter.” 

Fifteen minutes later, Katherine had a job. 

( 3 ) 

In ten weeks, Miss Johns, Katherine’s companion at 
the lace-counter, had come to think of “ Miss Hale ” as 
a nice girl, but a queer one. 

Miss Johns was a nice girl, too. She worked for 
the purpose of being able to have better clothes and 
more good times than her father could have bought 
her. She lived at home and paid no board. Some¬ 
times she helped her mother wash the dishes after 
supper; but more often she went right away to the 
movies. As she worked so hard all day, it was neces¬ 
sary for her to have some relaxation in the evening. 
Miss Johns was not queer. She was a perfectly 
normal girl, marking time at the lace-counter till some 
young man should take her by the hand and lead her 
via the altar to a neat little suburban home of her 
own. 

When she called " Miss Hale ” queer, she was really 
referring to the fact that Katherine had consistently 
refused all proposals to make the fourth member of 
select square parties to the movies or elsewhere; to 
the fact that Katherine seemed to have no interest in 
the pleasures of a normal young girl’s life, or in its 


BRASS TACKS 


225 


well-known business. Katherine presented to Miss 
Johns, at this time, the appearance of a misguided 
young woman treading an obstinate path that would 
inevitably lead to spinsterhood. 

What Miss Johns could not know was that Kath¬ 
erine had been so surfeited with the pleasures of life 
for the last five or six years that she was sickened of 
them; and that she had no respect for men, in their 
capacity as males, and no need of them. Paolo had 
seen to that; and poor, beguiled Davis Vaughn had 
innocently finished off the good work: sheer sex had 
placed him, so pitiably, despite reason, judgment, 
tradition and all, in Katherine’s scornful power. She 
had no respect for men, and no need of them: that was 
how she herself expressed it. 

Moreover, she was busy “ catching up ” with the 
cost of living. 

She had started her career as a wage-earner one 
week behind the game, and she had been catching up 
ever since. Fortunately she had had no clothes to 
buy; and her landlady, who was not by any means a 
bad sort, and who felt that the aristocratic Miss Hale 
lent valuable “ tone ” to her establishment, had given 
orders in the kitchen that scraps of last night’s dinner 
were to be wrapped in a bit of newspaper every day 
for a luncheon for Miss Hale—this without extra 
charge. But for this gratuity, Katherine could not 
possibly have kept her head above water. Thanks 
to it, and to her bounteous hoard of shoes, stockings, 
gloves (the articles that wear out so terribly fast), 
Katherine, in ten weeks, had at last caught up. 


226 


THE MOULD 


It had been a hard pull, morally; and now that, with 
the payment of the last dollar of her arrears that 
morning to her landlady, the strain was relaxed, Kath¬ 
erine realized how tense a strain it had been. 

In ten weeks, seven of them scorching weather, 
Katherine had become a little sallow, a little thin, a 
little edgy as to temper; but she had learned a great 
deal. 

For instance, she had learned that it is the runaway 
Dime that lures off the Disappearing Dollar; that 
cigarettes are too much of a luxury, not only for the 
pocketbook, but also for the constitution; that once 
you start mending a pair of stockings, your course is 
tragically a toboggan slide of darns, increasing in 
velocity toward the finish; that cardboard properly ap¬ 
plied and frequently renewed can be made to serve the 
remaining life in the uppers, when shoe-soles have 
worn through in holes; that a glove in the hand out¬ 
wears two on it; that one is not jeered at in the streets, 
even if one does wear a summer hat into October. 

For, though long on everything else, Katherine was 
short on hats. It was now the middle of October, and 
Katherine was still, and with impunity, wearing last 
April's hat. 

She was very sick of it, however. 

Miss Johns was surprised, the morning that Kath¬ 
erine caught up and the tension snapped, to see Miss 
Hale hurl April's hat destructively into her locker and 
slam the door upon it. Miss Johns had not dreamed 
that Miss Hale could be so human. 

“ Why don't you take the rose off and put some 


BRASS TACKS 227 

velvet on it?” suggested Miss Johns, sympathetically. 
“ It would give it more of an autumn-y look.” 

Katherine, fresh from the tension, looked as if she 
would like to say something unjustifiably disagreeable 
to the innocent Miss Johns; but ten weeks’ discipline 
behind the counter of a store which boasts the politest 
sales-force in the city, had taught her to hold her 
tongue fairly well; so she made no reply, but went, in 
moody silence, down to the laces. 

Custom was slack for a while, so she busied herself 
with sorting the boxes and putting to place some that 
had been displaced. She was thus occupied when an 
exclamation near at hand made her jump. 

“ Well —Katherine Howard! ” 


( 4 ) 

Of course she had known it must happen sometime, 
now that people were back in town; for the old set 
all shopped at Christie’s—and now it had happened. 
Separated from her only by the counter, stood Bettina, 
and a girl named Saxe, whom Katherine knew slightly. 
They all shook hands, across the counter; Miss Saxe 
with a faint air of rising to a rather extraordinary 
occasion; Bettina impulsively, with a squeeze; Kath¬ 
erine a trifle defiantly. 

“ We’ve all been perfectly wild, wondering what had 
become of you! ” cried Bettina. “ Where have you 
been hiding yourself? ” 

“ Nowhere,” said Katherine. “ I’ve been right here 
for ten weeks.” 


228 


THE MOULD 


44 Well, how are you, Kat dear? ” 

“ Very well, thank you.” 

44 You’re not looking very well.” 

“ I’m sorry to hear that.” 

Bettina flushed. “ You know I didn’t mean it that 
way. You only look as if you weren’t getting 
enough ”—Bettina had intended to say “ enough to 
eat ”; but, warned by Katherine’s look* she modified 
her conclusion — 44 enough fresh air.” 

A mild-mannered customer, too timid to assert her¬ 
self, was looking daggers at Katherine, so Bettina drew 
in her horns. 

“Will you come and see me, Kat dear? May I 
come and see you ? ” 

Katherine shook her head, turning perfunctorily to 
the mild customer. 

Bettina considered a moment in silence. 

“ Well,” she said, “ I’m due at Celeste’s this minute 
to have my hair done. Fancy! Marie’s little sister is 
coming out— at last! To-night Marie is so peeved! ” 
Bettina wrinkled her nose delightedly. “ They’ve 
kept the poor child in as long as they dare, to give 
Marie a chance. It’s really been a scandal! Wish 
you were going, Kat! ” 

“ Thanks.” 

“Well, so long! But I shall come again; and next 
time I shall bring Angela, and then you will have to 
treat me nicely! ” Bettina nodded a gay farewell, 
and, with the speechless Miss Saxe, hurried off, and 
was swallowed up in the stream of shoppers. 

“ Are those friends of yours? ” inquired Miss Johns, 


BRASS TACKS 229 

a little later, considerably awed by all this talk of hair¬ 
dressers and debutantes. 

Katherine nodded. 

“ Gee, that one that was talking to you was a swell¬ 
looking girl! " commented Miss Johns, sucking in her 
breath audibly, between drawn-in lips. “ What's her 
name?" . . . 

Bettina was a swell-looking girl that morning. 

She had on one of the new little feather toques, 
perched saucily over one ear; a new fall suit, with the 
jaunty flaring lines that were just arrived from Paris; 
a pair of beautiful gloves. A simple expensive bit of 
blouse showed between the open fronts of her suit- 
coat; a bit of sheer, hemstitched batiste fell correctly 
over the collar of the coat. Doubtless her pumps, and 
smart, high spats, if they had been visible to Miss 
John's eyes, would have seemed the climax of the 
swellness. 

“ Appetite," said Katherine, slowly, to Miss Johns, 
"is a curious thing. You overeat at Sunday dinner; 
subsequently you hate the thought of food; you absent 
yourself from the supper-table; all through an uncom¬ 
fortable evening you know that you will never want 
to eat again;—and then, about eleven p. m. when 
everything is put away in the ice-box, you suddenly 
discover that you are ravenous. You are ready to 
offer your kingdom for a sandwich! " 

Miss Johns looked, round-eyed, at Katherine. 

What Katherine was trying to tell Miss Johns, in 
lieu of other listener, was that her appetite for the 
flesh-pots had suddenly, at sight of Bettina, returned. 


230 


THE MOULD 


Katherine wanted a new suit, like Bettina’s; she 
wanted a smart little feather toque; she wanted doe- 
colored gloves, a frilly blouse, gleaming pumps and 
trim spats! Above all she wanted the single spotted 
green orchid, that Bettina had worn, like the hall¬ 
mark of luxurious aestheticism, on the bosom of her 
coat. 

She wanted Bettina’s day, too, even more ravenously 
than Bettina’s clothes. She wanted to be on her way 
now to Madame Celeste’s to have her hair done; she 
wanted to lunch daintily at the Green Dragon; to take 
a taxi-cab home; she wanted to exchange suit and 
blouse for a filmy negligee, and loll all the afternoon 
over a trashy love-novel till time for a beauty-sleep 
and a bath. 

Above all, she wanted to crown the pretty, useless 
day with jewels, a ravishing gown, a delectable dinner, 
and then the party at the Hunts’: lights, flowers, 
music, ices, chatter and laughter, bevies of prettily 
half-dressed girls, of nicely groomed young men, all 
as idle, all as useless, all as gaily immune from re¬ 
sponsibility as the Katherine of her hungry dreams; 
all conspiring, for one evening, to make her forget 
that the world—the real world—was full of work, of 
struggle, of mended clothes and unmended rags. 

Bettina’s world—the world Katherine conjured up 
in her hungry dream—was a pretty world: it shone 
like a round, colorful soap-bubble. The real world 
was a grim terrible thing, in contrast, with the colors 
mostly smeared; a vast lump of rocks and earth, 
rent constantly by the upheavals of inner fire. 


BRASS TACKS 


231 " 


Bettina’s race were pretty, exquisite bubble-crea¬ 
tures, compound of light and mirroring film. The 
real people, in contrast, were a Titan race: toilers, 
laborers, parched, sweaty, grim—no loveliness to 
them! They toiled, they clutched their lumpish food, 
they drank to drown their sorrows, they slept heavily, 
they woke at the relentless summons of a bit of 
homely mechanism, they hurried, unbathed, into the 
sodden clothes of yesterday, and toiled again—toiled 
to make the bubble possible—preposterous spectacle! 
A Titan race toiling titanically to sustain a bubble! 
Bending misshapen, gigantic backs beneath the bub¬ 
ble ! . . . 

Katherine remembered once seeing Mildred Speer, a 
frail slip of a girl, driving a pair of powerful black 
Russians in a high cart, through the Fenway. The 
thought had come to her then, “ What if those crea¬ 
tures should take the bits in their teeth and run ? ” 

She had conjured up the picture of Mildred’s wrists, 
blue-veined, frail and slim—contrasting them with the 
great proud necks of the Russians, the splendid chests, 
the ripple of mighty sinews in legs and thighs—and 
she had turned cold—as if Mildred had suddenly lain 
dead before her, crushed like an egg-shell. Then the 
thought had come to her, “ They do not know their 
power! They do not know they could do it! That 
is Mildred’s salvation. That is why she has lived this 
long.” . . . 

So it was with the Titans. They did not know their 
power. . . . 

And now Katherine was chained, down among the 


232 


THE MOULD 


toilers. Somewhere on the bubble, because Katherine 
and Mabel Johns, for the meagerest of living-wages, 
were selling Christie's laces to Christie’s customers, 
Christie’s daughters were having a day like Bet- 
tina's. . . . 

The irate voice of a neglected customer, demanding 
attention, broke, like the last intolerable stamp of her 
servitude, upon Katherine’s ears. She was rude to the 
customer. 

And after the latter had gone, without making her 
purchase, borne on her righteous ire as on a raging 
flood, Mabel Johns turned to Katherine and said, in a 
voice weak with alarm: “ Do you know who that was ? 
It was Mrs. DeSchamm 1 ” 


( 5 ) 

As Katherine, that night, jammed on April’s hat, 
with the single rose—once so smart—now looking 
more drabbled and amorphous than it had in the 
morning, she sighed volcanically. 

“ This has been a day!” she ejaculated. . . . 

Such a day inevitably has a sequel. 

The sequel to Katherine's day came in the form of a 
summons, about noon of the next day, to the office of 
“ the man who hires and fires " as the popular song so 
euphoniously descrbes him. 

Mr. DeSchamm was looking very much discom¬ 
posed. He liked hiring, but with all his good-natured 
soul he hated firing. Also he had a sneaking sympathy 
with the guilty Katherine, He lived with Mrs. De¬ 
Schamm ! 


BRASS TACKS 


233 


“ You were reported yesterday for impertinence to 
a customer, Miss Hale,” he began, uncomfortably. 

Katherine said nothing. 

There was an awkward pause. 

“ Well—er—have you—haven’t you any—er—there 
might be extenuating circumstances, you know, which 
would—there are usually two sides to-” 

“ I’m afraid not, this time,” said Katherine. 

“ You mean to say—er—to admit--? ” 

“ The customer spoke to me rather sharply for 
not waiting on her promptly; and I was rude to 
her.” 

Mr. DeSchamm’s hue became apoplectic. 

“ Quite wrong—quite wrong, Miss Hale! ” he said. 
“ At the same time—it seems to me-” He floun¬ 

dered. “ Well, now, Miss Hale, you wouldn’t be likely 
to forget yourself very soon again after this lesson, 
would you ? ” 

Katherine replied fervently that she would not. 

Mr. DeSchamm considered — he wriggled •— he 
frowned—he fingered a paper-cutter nervously—he 
cleared his throat. 

“ Well, Miss Hale,” he said at last, “ suppose we 
give you another chance. Only be sure not to let it 
happen again. Remember the watchword of this store 
is: Courtesy! ” 

“ From the salesgirl to the customer,” said Kath¬ 
erine, with a little smile. 

Mr. DeSchamm grinned. “ Precisely,” he agreed. 
“ The customer cannot be in the wrong! Don’t forget 
it It will be to your advantage.” 





234 THE MOULD 

Miss Johns was awaiting fearfully her associate’s 
return. 

“Are you fired?” she asked anxiously. 

Katherine shook her head. 

“ I’m to have another chance,” she replied. “ But 
I’m never again to forget about the Divine Right of 
Customers. Oh, the whole thing makes me sick! ” 
she burst out. “ What right has J. Howard Christie 
to say that I shall be insulted by anyone who happens 
to want to insult me, and not say a word in reply ? ” 

“ But if you do talk back, you’re liable to be fired,” 
said Miss Johns, practically. 

( 6 ) 

Mrs. DeSchamm must have known and distrusted 
her husband’s fatal softness of heart, for within 
twenty-four hours she came, to see with her own eyes, 
whether or not she had been avenged. 

Miss Johns gave Katherine a surreptitious nudge, 
and the latter looked up, to meet the bleak stare, 
focussed upon her, of the outraged lady. 

“ She came to see if you had been fired! ” whispered 
Miss Johns, apprehensively. “ Now she will raise the 
Old Nick with poor DeSchamm! ” 

Katherine laughed. She had a vision of the irate 
Mrs. DeSchamm bursting in upon her guilty spouse 
and reading him the riot act in the mere semi-privacy 
of his office, to the probable edification of several 
clerks. 

Sure enough, within the hour Katherine was sum¬ 
moned again. 


BRASS TACKS 


235 


Mr. DeSchamm looked uncomfortable, but he also 
looked ireful. Even the worm will turn; and no man 
likes to be curtain-lectured by his wife before his 
stenographers. 

“ Miss Hale,” he began, “ the customer who—er— 
complained of you seems to—er—feel that nothing but 
your dismissal is the proper penalty for your—er— 
impertinence.” 

Katherine said nothing. 

“ It is not the policy of the store to—er—lose a good 
customer in such a case. On the other hand—er— 
sometimes a certain compromise can—er—be effected 
so as not to lose an efficient employee, either. I am 
afraid I cannot leave you at the lace counter any 
longer; but possibly we can make an exchange. I 
have a young lady in the Ladies’ Suits who has not— 
er—been giving complete satisfaction in that depart¬ 
ment. I have been fearing I should have to discharge 
her; but I feel that she might possibly do better in a— 
er—different department. At any rate, it would be a 
chance for her. You have good height, a good figure, 
and a good manner for the suits. Should you like to 
try it there ? ” 

“ But when the—customer comes to buy herself a 
suit-?” inquired Katherine. 

“ The—er—customer does not buy her suits here.” 

“ Thank you, then; I should like it very much.” 

“ I may tell you,” continued Mr. DeSchamm, “ that 

the pay is somewhat better-” He paused and 

grinned. “ Hardly the proper Sunday-School-story 
ending for your transgressions ! ” 




236 


THE MOULD 


“ But truer to real life! ” retorted Katherine. 

Mr. DeSchamm looked at her rather curiously. 

“ So you believe that the wicked do flourish like a 
green bay-tree ? ” he inquired. 

“ Oh—absolutely!” said Katherine. 

Mr. DeSchamm looked at her thoughtfully for a 
few minutes. “ Well/' he said, “ I’d never go too far 
on that assumption, if I were you.” 

Katherine knew what he meant, though she affected 
not to. 


( 7 ) 

At the end of her first complete week in the Ladies’ 
Suits and Cloaks, Katherine’s pay-envelope contained 
four crisp one-dollar bills more than it had ever be¬ 
fore contained. And in the Hat Department was a 
little feather toque—a cheap imitation of the toques 
that Bettina and her friends were wearing but very 
chic on Katherine, for she had tried it on. It cost 
just exactly four dollars. 

That night she fought her battle; and it was as hard 
a battle as she ever had to fight—but she won it. In 
the morning she told her landlady she did not need to 
have any more lunches put up. She saved out two of 
the extra dollars for lunches; bought a feather and a 
bit of velvet with the third dollar, to retrim April’s 
hat nearer to the season; and the fourth dollar she put 
in the Savings Bank. 

Green bay-tree or not, she was determined she would 
flourish. 


CHAPTER XIII 


BLANCHE 

(I) 

The suit department adjoined, at one end, the main 
blouse department. Katherine's usual position was at 
that end, and she often noticed a fair, tired-looking 
girl who sold the chiffon blouses. 

Katherine looked at her often. 

She was not a pretty girl. Her forehead was too 
prominent, her features too small and delicate, her 
hair too pale, her skin too whitely colorless. 

There was something fascinating about her, how¬ 
ever. 

Was it her effect of fragility? Or was it the curi¬ 
ous illusion she produced of a soul too vehement for 
this containing fragility? 

Her hair, which had been cut, hung softly about her 
ears, like that of a child. 

Katherine thought her somewhat like a porcelain 
vase with fermenting wine too closely stoppered in 
it—a rather silly conceit, perhaps, since they do not 
put wine in vases. 

Katherine was certain that this girl was of the same 
world as herself. She was not like the other sales¬ 
women. Katherine was certain—and at the same time 
afraid of being mistaken. It kept her from getting 

237 


238 


THE MOULD 


acquainted with her. She was afraid of finding that, 
at closer range, a blurred enunciation should betray 
this paragon’s kinship, in spite of appearances, to the 
rest of their associates; that her little formal ways 
should prove affectation; her fineness only imitation; 
and the illusion of the porcelain vase be shattered. 

Sometimes Katherine thought the girl was noticing 
her, too. Sometimes she thought that when she looked 
at her, the girl’s observant scrutiny was almost sur¬ 
prised in the act of flight. 

Still, they did not get acquainted. By the end of 
Katherine’s first month in the Ladies’ Suits, there was 
scarcely an employee on the floor with whom she had 
not exchanged a word or at least a bow, except this 
one girl. There was an extraordinary reticence be¬ 
tween them. They were afraid of getting acquainted 
—afraid of being disappointed in each other. 

( 2 ) 

One noon, toward the end of November, on a nasty 
day, the girls who had box-lunches were eating in the 
employees’ rest-room. Katherine had run out to a 
near-by pastry-shop and brought in some rolls and an 
eclair for herself. As she entered the rest-room, loud 
talking and laughter from the bottom of the room 
forced itself on her attention. She kept as far away 
from it as possible. She sat down in a corner, by 
herself, at the upper end of the room, and broke a roll. 

Suddenly, as she was eating and thinking—thinking 
about Baldie, if the truth must be known, and wonder¬ 
ing how he was getting on—a voice, a different voice 


BLANCHE 


239 


from all the rest, rose above all the rest, as a clear 
flute-note will, at a little distance, be audible above a 
much greater volume of deeper-toned sound. It was 
an exquisite voice; a voice Katherine had never before 
heard; and she knew instantly that it belonged to the 
Porcelain-Vase girl. 

There was hot anger in it, and also unhappiness—the 
anger and the unhappiness of a creature who is being 
tormented beyond endurance. It was saying: “ Oh, 
let me alone, please, won’t you ? ” 

Katherine stuffed the broken roll back into the 
paper-bag, and rose, and sauntered down the room, and 
joined the excited group at its foot. 

The Porcelain-Vase girl was the center of it, at bay, 
but with no wall to get her back against; for the 
laughing group, with a sting in the laughter, was 
pressing her close, all about. Katherine edged into it. 

“ Sure he means business! ” Miss Dalzelle of the 
Children’s Coats was saying. “ You bet your sweet 
young life he means business! Maxwell don’t come 
buzzing ’round a girl two days running without he 
means business! ” 

“ Funny business,” supplemented Miss Ryan, of the 
Muslin Blouses, tossing her bobbed permanent wave. 

The group agreed that it was indeed a funny sort 
of business that Maxwell was likely to mean when he 
came buzzing ’round any girl two days running. 

Dumb and shamed, the Porcelain-Vase girl faced 
the talk. 

It had been funny business that Maxwell had meant 
with Bess Malloy—they all remembered about Bess 


240 


THE MOULD 


Malloy; it was six months ago that Bess vanished. 
She was just out of the hospital, now, was Bess; but 
she was not coming back to Christie’s. There was no 
place in Christie’s for such as Bess, Maxwell’s business 
with her being finished. 

Still, Maxwell was open-handed, while he lasted— 
and a clever girl could make him last a good while— 
and not a little envy sharpened the sting of the 
laughter with which Miss Dalzelle and Miss Ryan and 
the others rallied the Porcelain-Vase girl. 

Katherine knew what they were talking about. Yes¬ 
terday and to-day both, there had been a heavy-set, 
black-haired, swarthy man leaning over the table, 
among the chiffon blouses, talking to the Porcelain- 
Vase girl. He had passed through the suit depart¬ 
ment, speaking to no one, going straight to his desti¬ 
nation; and when he had at last left, he had gone 
straight away again through the suit department, 
speaking to no one. He had made no pretence that 
he had a general interest in Christie’s employees. 
Katherine knew who he was, though she had never 
come in contact with him. He was Louis Maxwell, 
junior member of the firm of Christie’s. 

“ Florrie, remember how he used to lean over the 
counter, eating Bess up with his eyes? Just like he 
was doing with Miss Viveash this morning 1 ” Miss 
Ryan appealed to a friend for confirmation of this 
similarity in Maxwell’s attitude to Bess Malloy and 
Miss Viveash. “ Gosh! ” she added, with a franker 
display of her envy, “ you’re the Million-Dollar Kid 
of this bunch, all right, Miss Viveash! ” 


BLANCHE 


241 


The Porcelain-Vase girl's lashes swept her scarlet 
cheeks. She had nothing to say. She did not seem 
to know how to fight in this warfare of innuendo. 
She seemed near to the shame of tears. 

Katherine heard her own voice cut in to the clamor: 
cool and arrogant. 

“Who’s this?” she inquired. “Maxwell? Why, 
that poor boob would talk heart-to-heart to an 
oystei, if the oyster would listen! I never in all my 
life saw a man with such an inflated opinion of him¬ 
self !" 

Katherine's voice, the calm, unraised voice of social 
authority, dominated the noisy group. 

“ I suppose,” suggested Miss Ryan, with a too-polite 
smile, “that he’s been cultivating you, too?” 

Katherine sent a little stare in her direction, before 
she replied contemptuously, “ He tried to tell me his 
great life-history one morning, but I’m not a good 
listener.” . . . She turned to the Porcelain-Vase 

girl, who had lifted her eyes, and was staring at her 
with a strange look. “ You’re too nice to him, Miss 
Viveash, that’s the trouble. Show him what you think 
of his great life-history next time he comes around, 
and he won’t bother you again. All he wants is a pair 
of awed eyes to tell him what a great man Maxwell 
is, that’s all. He doesn’t care who the eyes belong 
to! ” 

“What about Bess Malloy?” retorted Miss Dal- 
zelle, with more than a suspicion of a sneer. She was 
at no pains to conceal how intensely she disliked 
Katherine. 


242 


THE MOULD 


“ Bess Malloy,” replied Katherine crisply, “ must 
have been a little fool.” 

The group broke up, feeling itself, in some inex¬ 
plicable manner, routed. Katherine and Miss Viveash 
were left standing, together. 

Every luncheon, after that, they ate together. By 
the end of the month, they were rooming together at 
Katherine’s boarding-house in a small double-room. 
Blanche owned a tiny gas-plate; they attached it sur¬ 
reptitiously of a morning to the gas-jet, and got their 
own breakfast on it. It was a great saving. Some¬ 
times they had a wonderful repast: coffee, scrambled 
eggs, rolls, jam, and all; more often it was only the 
hasty cup of coffee. Katherine was in the extra¬ 
ordinary position of seeing her living-expenses reduced 
at the very moment that her earnings were increased. 
Every week she put away a little something toward the 
rainy day. 

Blanche was less prosperous. It took every cent of 
her earnings, every week, to pay her living-expenses 
and buy what clothes she had to have. There must 
be, for her, Blanche said, no rainy day! She could 
not afford it! 


( 3 ) 

Blanche was not, after all, of Katherine’s world. 
She was a country clergyman’s daughter in revolt. 

She had come, against all advice, to the city, with 
the ambition to become some sort of a designer—wall¬ 
paper ; rugs, perhaps—and had fallen upon hard times 


BLANCHE 243 

and found refuge and bread-and-butter among 
Christie's chiffon blouses. 

The barrier of pride behind Blanche was to Kath¬ 
erine’s as the Chinese Wall to a sand-fort. Katherine 
might conceivably die rather than admit her failure 
to the friends she had cut herself off from: Blanche 
would go through every shame. 

“ You have simply no idea,” said Blanche to Kath¬ 
erine, one Sunday as they stepped out briskly, side by 
side, in the bracing air of a sunshiny December day, 
through the Fenway toward Jamaica Pond, “ you have 
simply no idea of the way I was brought up! My 
father is the sweetest, best man that ever breathed; 
he’s almost a saint. And he’s the sincerest minister 
of the Gospel—his idea of the Gospel—that ever spoke 
from a pulpit. And yet all his life long it’s the devil 
he’s been looking at more than God. He’s always got 
his eye on him; as if he was suspicious he might crop 
up most anywhere any minute. He hasn’t the least 
bit of faith in God! He doesn’t think God is any¬ 
where near a match for the devil! 

“ Give the devil an inch and he’s sure to get an ell 
—that’s father’s creed, almost! He doesn’t dare put 
the least handicap in all the world on God! ” Blanche 
laughed, but only a little. 

“ Dancing—that’s wicked; and cards—they’re un¬ 
speakably wicked ! Theaters are wicked; movies are 
wicked; novels are all wicked. And ’most everybody 
in town (such a wee, stuffy, unventilated little town, 
Katherine!) thinks the same way father does. No¬ 
body plays cards; and nobody reads novels except a 


244 


THE MOULD 


few that do it on the sly. Once in a while there’s 
somebody bold enough to go down to Curtis Crossing 
to a dance or the movies; but they do it on the sly. 
Prayer-meeting and buggy-riding (of course there are 
some autos, too, now) are about our only amuse¬ 
ments. We don’t give the devil a single inch if we can 
help it. And yet ”—Blanche became pensive—“ it’s 
almost a saying around home that at High School 
graduation there’s always at least one of the 
girls who can’t be present to receive her diploma. 
It’s hardly failed in years. . • . Curious, isn’t 
it? 

“ Do you know the first thing I did when I got 
here ? ” asked Blanche, her gray eyes dancing. “ I 
went to a circus—a circus! ” 

Katherine, who had used to be so bored by Angela’s 
monologues, was never bored by Blanche’s. When 
Blanche talked, the blood flamed beneath her translu¬ 
cent skin; and the pupils of her gray eyes would dilate 
to great, black moons. 

Almost all Blanche’s conversation centered about 
religion. That, and designing—wall-paper, or, per¬ 
haps, rugs—seemed to be the only two things she was 
interested in. Were, apparently, the only things she 
knew anything about. 

After they went to bed at night, Katherine often 
thought about Blanche, and her burning religiousness, 
and about Blanche’s father, who considered Blanche 
a heretic, and who despaired of Blanche’s ever being 
“saved,” because Blanche could never get a conviction 
of sin. 


BLANCHE 245 

Blanche couldn’t, simply couldn’t, get a conviction 
of sin. 

Blanche had done, of course, she said, quite a num¬ 
ber of small, mean things in her life; but nothing really 
so bad that she could feel God would be awfully upset 
about them. She used to go in wading in somebody’s 
horse-trough when she was a little girl; and once, 
when she was eleven, she stole two cents out of the 
Missionary-Box, and bought some jack-stones with it. 
It had been on her conscience ever since; but she 
couldn’t get a conviction of sin out of it. 

So, as her spiritual condition—her failure to get a 
conviction of sin—worried her father all the time, 
Blanche had thought she had better come away. 

Blanche’s religious talks—her passionate expositions 
of her own creed and her own God—were always 
monologues. Katherine took no part in them to make 
them conversation. Blanche did not seem to expect it. 
Ardently religious as she was, in her burning revolt 
from the older dogmas, she never made the slightest 
assault upon Katherine’s soul; never tore its decent 
garment of reticence from it; never attempted to take 
it gently by the hand, as it were, and lead it to God. 
It was as if she tacitly assumed that Katherine’s soul 
was Katherine’s exclusive and private business; that 
the business of Katherine’s soul could quite safely be 
left to God and Life. Blanche, Katherine gathered, 
had an immense confidence in God and Life and souls. 

When Katherine talked, it was again a monologue; 
a monologue of a different color. She told Blanche 
long tales of the bubble-world: of picturesque frivol- 


246 


THE MOULD 


ities, of clothes, of the loves, ambitions and malices 
of Angela, Marie, Bettina. 

At such times the great black moons would wax 
again in Blanche’s wide, listening eyes; and the flush 
of her cheeks would wane to the pallor of intenser 
excitement. 

To-day Katherine had been weaving such a tale. 
They had reached the summit of the Arboretum as it 
drew to its conclusion. And suddenly Blanche, who 
had been listening a long, long time, flung open her 
arms in a gesture of amazing abandon and cried, “Oh, 
that is Life! . . . And I have never had it—not 

even a taste of it. . . . But I shall have it! ” 

( 4 ) 

Maxwell was a short, thick-set bull of a man, red¬ 
faced and black-jowled, with wrists as hairy and black 
as a baboon’s. Feminine blondness and fragility 
might conceivably attract him. 

As the days passed, and he was seen more and more 
frequently hanging over the table of chiffon blouses, 
and the other girls lifted more and more significant 
eyebrows at the sight, and tongues wagged less and 
less pleasantly, Katherine thought that Blanche her¬ 
self was becoming a little anxious. 

Blanche, however, open as she was about her ideas 
of life and God, was chary with her personal con¬ 
fidences. Once she deserted Katherine and went to 
luncheon with Mr. Maxwell—so much she told Kath¬ 
erine; but what they talked about, she did not say. 
Later, too, she went out to dinner with him. He met 


BLANCHE 247 

her in a high-powered car, and they rushed down to 
the South Shore. 

She told Katherine, afterward, the name of the 
roadhouse to which they had gone, and on whose 
broad and festive piazza they had dined. Katherine 
shook her head disapprovingly. She did not know 
anything definite against the place, but she was under 
the impression that a faint mist of ill-repute clung 
about its name. 

Blanche laughed: the black moons grew full. 
“ Well, it may not be life with a capital L, Kitty, but 
it's something! And I’ve never had anything—any¬ 
thing ! ” 

She chattered excitedly till two o’clock, telling 
Katherine all about the grand things they had to eat, 
and the people they saw, the clothes, the manners, the 
two girls who took too many high-balls and began 
picking geranium-blooms from the flower-boxes and 
sticking them in their escorts’ hair. She told Kath¬ 
erine also about the cocktail she had tasted and found 
nasty. 

“ Well, I wouldn’t learn to drink cocktails, any¬ 
way,” said Katherine, decidedly. “ It’s all right to 
dare give the devil an inch, but I wouldn’t downright 
invite him to take the ell! ” 

“ No, I suppose I’d better not,” replied Blanche, 
soberly. . . . “ But, oh, Kitty, isn’t it glorious— 

the rush through the night-air—well, you know! 
You’ve had things!” 

“Yes, I have.” Katherine said it abruptly; and 
turned her face to the wall. 


248 


THE MOULD 


Katherine was worried. It was the first time in her 
life, so far as she could remember, that she had ever 
been worried. True, when she was out of work, and 
almost out of money, she had been perturbed about 
her affairs; almost discouraged, in fact; but that was 
different from this. Katherine had always a large re¬ 
serve fund of self-reliance to draw on; and she could 
see, looking back, that even at the lowest ebb of her 
courage, this subconscious sense of her ability to pull 
through somehow had never really deserted her. 

But now it was different. This was Blanche’s af¬ 
fair; and Katherine had not quite the confidence in 
Blanche’s ability to pull through it that she would 
have had in herself. Katherine had her temptations; 
but since the time she had learned her hard lesson, 
she never forgot where her own interests lay. She 
would never play into any man’s hand again! 

The bait that Maxwell was throwing out for 
Blanche, moreover, would never attract Katherine. 
To Blanche it glittered like a red-gold and green-gold 
miracle in the sun: to Katherine, whose life, from 
seventeen to twenty-three, had been crowded with just 
such spinning, bobbing, shiny, tiresome toys, there was 
no miracle about them. 

But Blanche? Katherine was worried. Naturally, 
to a girl who had been denied every normal, healthy 
pleasure of youth, the lure of the world and the flesh 
was irresistible. Blanche’s father, the unwise Apostle 
of a deformed Gospel, had been the devil’s best ally. 
The keen old saying about minister’s sons and deacon’s 
daughters had not grown out of nothing. The sins 


BLANCHE 


249 


of the fathers—sins of stupidity, sins of unlovely 
egotism, sins against nature—are still visited upon the 
children. The sin of Blanche’s sweet and saintly 
father was about to be visited on her. Blanche was 
abnormal. Her father, thinking he knew better than 
Nature, had tried to make a different manner of crea¬ 
ture of her from what Nature had planned—and he 
had succeeded. He was like the ancient Chinese, who 
took a live young baby and shut it up to grow in a 
goblin-shaped vase, thus imposing on it the form and 
features they preferred to Nature’s. 

Blanche, starved by the dullness of twenty years, 
had come to the city ravenous for what she called 
Life. When she came, she meant, by Life, the de¬ 
signing of wall-papers or, perhaps, rugs; the encoun¬ 
tering of the Prince; and a wooing that should out¬ 
shine dreams. 

Katherine had started the harm by telling the long 
tales of the bubble-world. They had, alarmingly, 
given Blanche a new, eagerly-seized-upon definition of 
Life. 

Maxwell seemed about to complete the harm by 
offering Blanche the bubble-world in a champagne- 
glass. Life—offered to one in a champagne-glass! 

Champagne on an empty stomach is bad. And 
Blanche, as she declared so passionately, had never 
had even a taste of Life. 


( 5 ) 

Long after Katherine thought Blanche was asleep, 


250 


THE MOULD 


the voice from her cot spoke up tremulously, wist¬ 
fully: “If only-” 

“If only what, Blanche?” asked Katherine, gently. 

“ If only—he were different—and—not married.” 

( 6 ) 

Two days later, Blanche was discharged. 

“ But why, Blanche, why ? ” cried Katherine, in¬ 
credulously. For an instant, she did not connect Mr. 
Louis Maxwell with this pleasant event. 

Blanche flushed slowly till her fair face was dark, 
dahlia-red. 

“ Because,” she said. 

Katherine understood. 

She was aghast and furious. At the same time 
something went through her like singing. Blanche had 
conquered! 

Aloud she only said: “ Cheer up! You’ll have an¬ 
other place in no time! ” 

“ I don’t know about that,” replied Blanche, gloom- 
ily. 

“ Stuff! Of course you will! Look at me—with¬ 
out experience or reference! ” 

“ It’s easier to get a job without any experience 
than with experience in a place from which you can’t 
get a recommendation.” 

“ Oh, the cowards! ” said Katherine. 

Blanche shrugged her shoulders. “ Who is De- 
Schamm, to go against the will of the Mighty Max¬ 
well ! ” 



BLANCHE 251 

“ I wish I were DeSchamm for just half an hour! ” 
said Katherine. 

“ And if you were you’d lose your job in that half 
hour.” 

“ All right! Then I’d lose my job! But at least 
I’d have the satisfaction of losing it like a man! ” 

“ But he couldn't feed the little DeSchamms on 
that.” 

They were both silent for a while. 

“ You see,”—Blanche’s thoughts had gone on by 
leaps,—“ Fate has it in for me! She has given me 
just a second’s glimpse of Life—just the briefest, 
tormenting glimpse—and then stuck it away behind a 
grating.” 

“ Well, anyhow, you aren’t going to bruise yourself 
against the grating,” said Katherine. 

“ Who knows ?” said Blanche. . . . “You see,” 

she continued, steadily, “ what the investigators, what 
the statisticians don’t perceive, when they talk about 
a * living-wage,’ is that food and shelter and a decent 
covering for the body are not all that is necessary to 
life. We’re young! We need pleasure, we need pretty 
clothes, and a young man or two around. They aren’t 
luxuries! They’re the necessities of our age! The 
wage that doesn’t let us have any of them—not a 
speck of pleasure—nothing to fix ourselves up pretty 
with—no young men, men different from Maxwell— 
is not a living-wage! It’s a criminal wage! It’s a 
wage that crowds us into the place where we must 
starve—or steal! ” 

Katherine was frightened. She was glad that she 


252 


THE MOULD 


had been flourishing like a green bay-tree and that she 
had something laid away for a rainy day: for it looked 
as if it were going to be a very rainy day indeed for 
Blanche. 

( 7 ) 

It was. For a week she looked for work, but she 
got none. 

“ I’m leaving you, Kitty,” she said, finally. 

And leave she did; one day while Katherine was 
away at work, since the latter would not let her go 
when she was there. 

Katherine found a brief note from her, giving her 
new address, and saying, for the rest: “ I don’t want 
to lose you, Kitty; but I can’t graft.” 

Katherine hunted her up at once. She found her in 
a “ side-room ” of indescribable squalor. It opened 
off the fourth-floor hall of a filthy lodging-house. It 
was scarcely larger than a good-sized closet, and it 
had no window. It contained three articles of furni¬ 
ture : a cot-bed, a wash-stand which stank, and a crip¬ 
pled chair. The wash-stand stood at the head of the 
bed, and was furnished forth with a tin wash-bowl, 
a cracked-nosed pitcher, a soap-dish with the remains 
of a dirty cake adhering obstinately to its inner sides, 
a chinaware mug, and a kerosene lamp with a smoked 
and broken chimney. In the door were two long, 
rusty nails and a hook. These were to accommodate 
Blanche’s wardrobe, and they did so. Over the wash- 
stand hung a match-safe, a crocheted “ hair-receiver ” 
and a comic match-scratcher depicting the back-view 
of a farmer done in sand-paper with the legend 


BLANCHE 253 

u Scratch my back/’ to which some former occupant 
of the room had scrawled a humorous addition. 

The touch of unconscious irony was supplied by a 
colored print entitled “ Home ” which was held, some¬ 
what askew, by two tacks, on the wall opposite the foot 
of the bed. 

No one but a hod-carrier could have existed in such 
a room, for two reasons: first, because it was unven¬ 
tilated day or night, and the stench of the whole dread¬ 
ful house seemed to filter into it and lodge there, ac¬ 
cumulating vapor upon vapor; and second, because it 
was alive with bedbugs. 

Blanche, however, said she was going to exist there. 
Smells and bedbugs couldn’t vanquish her! It wasn’t 
a very pretty room; but even it was more than she 
could possibly afford. 

“ Well,” said Katherine, “ I don’t suppose I can 
take you back by force-” (“You can’t!” inter¬ 

polated Blanche.) “ But I haven’t given up our room, 
and I’m not going to. I shall keep it on; and when 
you get ready to come back, it will be there, and so 
shall I! ” 

Blanche did not come back, however. She got work, 
finally. It was a job of sewing buttons on men’s 
bargain-sale trousers in what was, in all but name, a 
sweat-shop. 

Whatever may be said of the amplitude of Christie’s 
wages, there is no room for argument about that of 
the sweat-shop. It is not a living-wage. Nobody ever 
claims that it is. Blanche, attempting to live on it, 
was slowly starving to death before Katherine’s eyes. 



254 


THE MOULD 


Katherine stormed and protested in vain. She met 
a will as obstinate, and a barrier of pride more in¬ 
surmountable, than her own. 

She went to see Blanche every evening; and every 
evening it seemed to her that Blanche was visibly 
worse in health. A sallow tinge had obscured her 
fairness; her great eyes were sunken, and deep purple 
circles around them made them ghastly; her eyeballs 
were yellowish; she was becoming scarcely more than 
skin and bone and nerves that twitched. 

She would not accept money from Katherine; she 
would not accept food. Her independence was more 
passionate, more disastrous than Katherine's own. 

Besides, she said, Katherine could not keep two on 
her earnings; and that was of course true. 


( 8 ) 

February at last came in: a mild, relaxing, treacher¬ 
ous February. It was bad weather for Blanche. 
Often now, when Katherine came, she found Blanche 
in bed, and left early, so that, if possible, Blanche 
could get a little sleep before the regiments of bed¬ 
bugs mustered and marched upon her. 

One evening, however, Blanche detained her. 

Katherine sat on the side of the bed, and Blanche 
laid her transparent hand on Katherine's strong brown 
one. 

“ I've been asleep already, Katherine," she said, in 
her weakened voice. “ I’ve been dreaming. . . ." 

The terror of her dreams was still upon her. She 


BLANCHE 255 

wanted to talk about them; to share the terror of 
them. . . . 

As Katherine listened, the flesh crawled on her 
spine. 

“ This settles it! ” she cried suddenly. “ Something 
is going to be done! If you won’t agree to it, then 
it shall be done by force! ” 

Blanche looked steadily at Katherine. 

“If you write my people-” she began. 

“ I shan’t write your people,” interrupted Kather¬ 
ine, shortly. “ I’m not a fool. . . . But I shall do 

something! ” 

Blanche’s eyes closed. “ You can’t do,” she said, 
“ anything, Kitty.” 

“ I shall do something,” reiterated Katherine. “ And 
right now I’m going to stroke your head till you go 
to sleep.” 

After a long time, under the ministrations of Kath¬ 
erine’s hand, Blanche’s breathing became faint, but 
regular. The starts and twitchings of her limbs grew 
less frequent, then ceased. She was asleep. 

Katherine blew out the light, and tiptoed from the 
room. 

She went home, and tried to go to bed; but the 
terror of Blanche’s dreams would not leave her, even 
in sleep. All night long she was haunted by a wailing 
—the wailing of the lonely gull over the lonely sea of 
Blanche’s dream; by the rushing of black water over 
hidden rocks; by the ebb and flow and plash of surf 
in a dim cavern. All night long she was trying to get 
away from the Thing that jumped out on her from 



256 


TEE MOULD 


behind doors and buildings and trees. Then she found 
her car, miraculously, and she was driving like the 
wind along a dreary country road, getting away. 
Then suddenly her heart stopped beating. There, on 
the hood of her car perched, like a great bird, the 
very Thing from which she was running; and through 
its mufflings she divined its eyes upon her, and the 
featureless horror of its leer. Blanche’s dreams had 
become her own. 

In consequence, the next morning she overslept, 
and had to hurry into her clothes, and away to the 
store without any breakfast. 

Once outside the house, she perceived that the 
weather, so unseasonably mild and spring-like the day 
before, had changed abruptly to a wintry tempera¬ 
ture; but she had no time to go back for a heavier 
wrap. 

By noon she had a sore throat and a headache. 
She did not go out for any luncheon, but lay down 
in the rest-room. When it came time to go back to 
her duties in the suit-department, she could not move. 

About three o’clock, the store-nurse came, and, 
after taking her pulse and temperature and inspect¬ 
ing her throat, gave her a little envelope of pills and 
sent her home, telling her by no means to report the 
next morning. Christie’s was very properly cautious 
about sore throats. 

The next morning she was worse, and felt no temp¬ 
tation to get up. Her landlady came in to see her, 
made her some tea and toast, and promised to see 
that a brief note which she had scrawled to Blanche, 


BLANCHE 257 

explaining why she could not come to see her that 
evening, should be safely placed in a letter-box. 

Ultimately she had to have a doctor, who pro¬ 
nounced it tonsilitis. She was in bed for five days, 
and confined to her room the rest of the week. 

And all this time, not a word from Blanche. 

Katherine was more than worried, and the first day 
that she was allowed out* she hurried straight from 
work to Blanche’s room. 

It was vacant. 

Blanche’s little old-fashioned trunk, locked, stood 
outside the door. 

The miserable sexless creature who kept the house 
told Katherine that Blanche had that day given up 
her room, and that she had left directions for her 
trunk to go in the morning to the address printed on 
the tag. 


(9) 

Katherine looked at the address. It bore the name 
of a pretentious apartment-house in a none too reputa¬ 
ble neighborhood. 

“ Have you a pencil ? ” asked Katherine. 

The poor creature, clucking with concentration, pro¬ 
duced the stub of one from its rags. Katherine, with 
strong black strokes, crossed off the name of the 
apartment-house, and substituted her own address. 

“ Where is Miss Viveash now? ” she asked. 

The lodging-house keeper did not know. A gentle¬ 
man came for her about five o’clock in a big limousine, 
and she went away with him. 


258 


THE MOULD 


What did the gentleman look like ? 

A hairy man, he was. 

Katherine added a few details, describing Mr. Louis 
Maxwell. Did the gentleman look like that? Yes, 
ma’am, that was him. Katherine produced a coin 
which changed hands without much ado; then she 
hurried out onto the street. 

Blanche had given in. Maxwell had got her. A sob 
surprised Katherine. 

Then suddenly she shook her head, as if she were 
shaking back a heavy mane. Not for nothing was she 
the daughter of Richard Howard, a faulty husband 
and father, but a fighter! Not for nothing was she 
the daughter of Belle Ansella Hicks, a fighter, too! 

For the first time in seven months, she hailed a 
taxi. She gave the address that she had crossed off 
Blanche’s trunk-tag. 

The apartment indicated was dark. The gentleman 
and lady who had taken it were not expected till the 
following day. She could have killed the janitor for 
his knowing leer. 

Instead, she produced a dollar bill, and asked him 
if he knew where she could get in touch with the 
gentleman on the ’phone. It was urgent. (Inspira¬ 
tion came to her.) A message had come for him 
after he left the office which he must have at once. 

The janitor looked dubious; but a dollar bill is a 
great dissolver of doubts. The gentleman had left a 
telephone number where, under the name of Thomas 
Smith, he was to be called in case a certain telegram 
came here for him. 


BLANCHE 


259 


Thank God for the occasional coincidence! 

Katherine copied the number carefully, thanked the 
janitor, parted with the dollar bill—her last unbroken 
one—and hastened to a telephone-booth at the nearest 
drug-store. It required but a few minutes and a 
little verbal diplomacy to verify her suspicions. The 
telephone number was the number of the house on 
the South Shore. 

Katherine peered through the glass of the booth 
door at the drug-store clock. 

Six-thirty. They would be just ordering dinner 
about now. It would take a half hour or so to get it. 
Then an hour to eat from cocktails to champagne. 
There was time yet—in a high-powered car. 

For a moment she tapped thoughtfully on the shelf; 
then she called a number. 

“ Can you give me Mr. Archibald Daggett’s ad¬ 
dress?.Thank you.Can I reach him by 

’phone, do you know?.I can?.Thank you.” 

In less than two minutes, she had reached him, and 
was saying in a voice that vibrated with something 
beside excitement, “Hello, Baldie; this is Katherine. 

.Yes—Kat. Listen, Baldie. Can you borrow a 

high-powered car at once and meet me? I’m sorry if 
you’re right in the middle of dinner—this is S. O. S. 
—you know I wouldn’t call you for anything short 

of..Yes.” She gave the location of the 

drug-store. “ I’ll be on the sidewalk. Every minute 
counts. Don’t stop even to put on a clean collar. I'll 
explain.Twenty minutes—good.” 










260 


THE MOULD 


(io) 

It was a small and innocent-looking house. Little 
gables, white, with green shutters, peered out over the 
wide glassed-in verandah that enclosed it below. It 
fronted on a neat lawn, dotted with shrubbery, and 
cut by a semicircular driveway, graveled and edged 
with white pebbles. 

It was, however, the off season for these places 
along the shore. The drive was too bleak. Only one 
little table in the heated verandah with its summery 
flower-boxes was occupied, and that not by the couple 
whom Katherine was seeking. 

There were, however, two cars ahead of Baldie’s, 
parked beside the driveway. . . . 

Once within the house, Baldie began to look mor¬ 
tally uneasy. He glanced at the naive, white-balus¬ 
tered, cheerfully-carpeted little staircase; he glanced 
at Katherine, who had casually announced her inten¬ 
tion—for the benefit of an obsequious waiter—of 
going up to take off her wraps and powder her 
nose. 

“ Kat,” he whispered, “ I can’t let you do it. I 
can’t let you go up there. You don’t know-” 

“ I do know. And you can’t keep me. Blanche is 
up there and I am going to get her. You won’t get 
frightened and spoil things by interfering, Baldie?” 

“If you feel you must do it, Kat, I’ll stand by. I 
won’t butt in—as long as nothing goes flooey with 
your plans. Don’t get frightened! You know noth¬ 
ing can really happen to you. I could hear a scream 
from any room in this little place.” 



BLANCHE 261 

" You won’t hear any screams! ** She smiled. 
“ There are no screams in my plan/' 

The waiter, coming forward again as Katherine 
withdrew, obviously thought it entirely natural that 
the lady should go up-stairs to the ladies* room to re¬ 
move her wraps, and that the gentleman should wish 
to wait to order the dinner till she should come down. 
It seemed quite natural to him, also, that the gentle¬ 
man should wish dinner served in a certain cozy little 
private dining-room that opened off the entrance-hall 
on the opposite side from the main dining-room. And 
he quite understood the language of the yellow-backed 
bill which Baldie handed him as he remarked, after 
having been made free of the little dining-room, “ Oh, 
and by the way—George! When we*re ready to order, 
I’ll ring.** 

“ Yes, sir.** 

The waiter bowed and discreetly withdrew to some 
distant region in the rear of the house. It was the off¬ 
season. Yellow-backed bills were rare, and corre¬ 
spondingly precious. It was none of his business how 
long a time should elapse before the gentleman and 
lady got ready to order dinner. 

As for Baldie, left alone in the hall, at the foot of 
the stairs—he pulled out his watch and looked at it. 
At the end of eight minutes he was to go out and 
make ready for instant departure. At ten minutes he 
was to start his engine. If nothing had happened by 
the end of twelve minutes, he was to toot his horn 
savagely. And again at fifteen minutes. 

“ Yes, and by gum, if nothing has happened by 


262 


THE MOULD 


then ” said Baldie, grimly, to himself, “ there’s going 
to be a nice little personally-conducted raid of these 
here premises—by a posse of one.” 

Three minutes. Silence reigned in the front of the 
house. It might have been deserted, for all the signs 
of human occupancy it showed. Four minutes. He 
could hear his watch tick. Five minutes. As deep a 
silence seemed to hold the floors above. He strained 
his ears, in vain. Not a sound. Not a footfall. Not 
the echo of a voice. Six minutes. 

What was happening up there? Where was Kath¬ 
erine ? 

Eight minutes. 

Beads of perspiration stood out on Baldie’s brow. 
He looked irresolutely up the stairs. 

Then, like a good soldier, whose first virtue is obe¬ 
dience, he went out to his car. 

(ii) 

He tooted his horn—savagely. 

Thirteen minutes. Fourteen. 

Then he saw them coming, across the glassed-in 
verandah, walking hastily and lightly: a heavy-shoul¬ 
dered, scowling man half-carrying, half-dragging a 
girl wrapped in a fur cloak; and Katherine, her face 
shining with triumph. Baldie sprang into the driver’s 
seat, threw out the clutch, laid his hand on the gear¬ 
shift. His engine was already running. 

The three came rapidly out of the verandah and 
across the driveway to the side of the car. 

Katherine opened the door of the tonneau. The 


BLANCHE 


2G3 


man, who, Baldie knew, must be Maxwell, half-lifted, 
half-flung the bareheaded, fair-haired girl in the fur 
coat into the car. Katherine sprang in after her and 
put her arms about her. 

Baldie trod on the accelerator. 

“ I suppose you know,” snarled Maxwell, looking at 
Katherine, across Blanche, “ that you’ll pay for this ? ” 

“ Get out of the road, you cur! ” shouted Baldie. 

“ Let’s go, Baldie! ” said Katherine, clearly and 
quietly. 

Reluctantly the car roared, plunged forward, shot 
into the dark. 

For ten minutes it rocked and leaped along the un¬ 
certain road; then it slowed down; stopped. 

Baldie took his hands from the wheel, drew out a 
handkerchief, mopped his face and neck. 

He turned around. 

The girl Blanche, slumped over sidewise, her head 
in Katherine’s lap, her body held firm by Katherine’s 
arm, was asleep. Across her, Katherine smiled 
warmly at Baldie. 

“ You did wonderfully, Baldie,” she said. “ It was 
no time for a fight.” 

“ Gosh, but I wish I had pasted him one—just one 
—right on his dirty jaw,” growled Baldie. 

“ No,” said Katherine. “ That would have meant 
a row—the whole place roused—perhaps police—and 
the whole thing in the papers. And then Blanche 
would be done for.” 

“ You’re a dam good friend, Kat,” said Baldie. 

" I have a good friend, too,” retorted Katherine. 


264 


THE MOULD 


“You were splendid, Baldie! To come right forward 
on the minute—at my S. O. S.—after all these months 

—and do everything just the way I said-” 

** Mm ! ” grunted Baldie. 

" I was in time,” said Katherine, quietly. 

She began to laugh. “ Oh, how wild—how simply 
raging—Maxwell will be to-morrow, when he gets the 
high-balls out of his head and realizes he was bluffed— 
bluffed!— bluffed! —by one lone young woman with¬ 
out a single card up her sleeve! Blanche was deter¬ 
mined not to come away with me. I made him carry 
her. Carry her! ” 

She grew breathless with laughing. “ And, to add 
to it, bluffed by a saleswoman out of his own store— 
whose fortunes, as one might say, he holds in the 
hollow of his hand! ” 

Baldie started the car gently. 

“ Yeah,” he said. “ That's just what’s worrying me 
—that fortunes-in-the-hollow-of-his-hand stuff. Does 
he know you by sight, Kat ? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Katherine, carelessly, “ he knows 
who I am.—You tooted the horn at just the right in¬ 
stant, Baldie. He wasn’t quite decided, till then.— 
Oh, yes, he knows who I am all right. But who’s 
afraid of Maxwell! ” 

Baldie did not reply. 


(12) 

They drove a long way home, for Katherine did not 
wish to reach the boarding-house till after the hall 
lights should have been put out, and everybody was 



BLANCHE 2G5 

abed. She did not wish anyone to see Blanche car¬ 
ried in. 

It was a long, wonderful ride through the silent 
night, along a vast shadowy shore where a full tide 
whispered and softly plashed. 

Katherine, holding Blanche in her arms, thought of 
many things; and the thought mingled with the won¬ 
der of the night. She thought of Maxwell, and of 
Blanche, and of what she had saved Blanche from. 
She thought of Paolo; and her heart cried to the night, 
in revolt, the woman’s age-old question: “ Are all men 
like that? ” 

And the night only answered with the whisper and 
plash of the full tide on the shadowy shore. 

Her heart answered its own question. “ No! 
They’re not all like that! There’s Baldie.” 

Her heart, unaccountably sang. 


CHAPTER XIV 


RESURRECTION 

(0 

Baldie carried Blanche into the dark house and 
up the staircase along an empty hall, and into the 
room she had formerly shared with Katherine. He 
laid her down, still wrapped in the coat, in her old 
cot-bed. Her body sank limply into the hollow of 
mattress and pillows, completely abandoned to ster¬ 
torous slumber. 

“ Well,” said Baldie, in an awkward whisper, “ I 
guess you’re all right now. . . . Do you think 

she needs a doctor? ” 

“ No. I want to thank you, Baldie. You’ve been a 
trump! ” 

“ Oh—rats! ” muttered Baldie, embarrassed. 

Still he did not go. 

They moved softly to the window, and stood there, 
side by side, looking out. They could see down into 
a small back yard with a small, bare tree in it, and 
ghostly clothes, stiff with frost, hanging on a ghostly 
line. Everything was bathed in a queer, phosphor¬ 
escent glow. It was a night for whispering. 

Baldie and Katherine felt wrapped in a peaceful 
langour: the delicious relaxation of every nerve and 
fibre at the cessation of immense, daring effort and 

266 


RESURRECTION 


267 


exalting- triumph. They were intimately conscious of 
happiness in each other’s proximity. They had been 
partners in a great undertaking and a great achieve¬ 
ment: the sense of their partnership had not yet left 
either of them. 

Baldie broke out impetuously—with as much im¬ 
petuosity as a whisper will carry—“ Look here, Kat, 
you’re not going to shut me off again, are you? I tell 
you, I can’t stand it! . . . Especially now, after 
that—that cur’s threats. I’d be worrying my head off, 
wondering if —— I can’t stand it, Kat, and I’m not 
going to! You’ve got to let me stand by, now! ” 
Katherine, taken by a sudden weakness, leaned 
against the window-frame. She looked, in the pale 
glow, wraith-like. But she shook her head. 

“ Got to stand on my own feet, thank you, Baldie! ” 

“ Oh— listen, Kat-! ” 

“Sh! Please!” 

(“Oh, doggone this whispering—like a thief!”) 
He whispered: “ I’m getting thirty a week now. I’ve 
heard on good authority that next month I’m to be 
raised to fifty. I’m making good, and working like a 
dog. The old man’s pleased. I’m only telling you 
this to show you I’m not such a cad as to ask you to 
marry me if I didn’t have prospects. Lots of the 
men at the factory are married, on as little or less 
than I’m getting now. It’d mean you’d have to do the 
Housework for a year or two; but, Kat, it wouldn’t, 
it couldn’t be so much worse than this! And it would 
give me the right, that I haven’t got now, to stand by 
you, all the time, night and day.” 




2G8 


THE MOULD 


Katherine stared at him curiously. It was hard for 
her to believe in the unselfishness of any man—even 
Baldie—where a woman was concerned. Still her 
logical mind perceived either that his speech must in¬ 
dicate great unselfishness or a great desire for her: 
since he was ready to make such a material sacrifice as 
his marriage just now would entail, either to protect 
her or to possess her. 

Which was the real subconscious motive ? The first 
was hard to believe in; but the second, when she scru¬ 
tinized his earnest eyes, bent upon her, his grim jaw, 
his capable hands, seemed a downright insult. Baldie 
might have strong passions, probably did have, but he 
was not one to be, like Davis Vaughn, dominated by 
the sex-passion to the exclusion of reason, common- 
sense, and sane self-interest. Still, some devil in her, 
spawn of Paolo’s teachings, could not forbear making 
a test. 

“ Well,” she said, carefully, " I don’t know that I 
ought to force it to be a choice, for you, between not 
seeing me at all or marrying me. ... It would be 
hard, anyway, after to-night, to go back to the old 
lonesome way. ... I must work out my own sal¬ 
vation to the finish. I’ve hardly made a beginning 
yet. Still, we shall keep in touch. ... So you 
can stand by.” 

“ But I have to leave you now,” said Baldie. “If 
we were married, I wouldn’t have to.” 

The skeptical devil, spawn of Paolo’s teachings, 
smiled at this speech, and dared Katherine to press 
the test. 


RESURRECTION 


269 


It was a bad moment for pressing any tests. The 
ghostly, whispering night shut her and Baldie together, 
alone in the sleeping house. The air seemed sur¬ 
charged with a disturbing electricity. Never again 
could they be just human beings together, she and 
Baldie. Blanche’s experience, in which they had vi¬ 
cariously participated, had destroyed their innocence. 
Katherine was conscious of a nervous difficulty in 
articulating the words of her test: “ Suppose I should 
say that you needn’t leave me now. That you could 
stay.” 

“ But you wouldn’t say that! ” retorted Baldie, 
bluntly. “ You’re not that kind of a girl.” 

She winced, almost as if she had made the sug¬ 
gestion and been rebuffed. Then she said, sombrely, 
“ How do you know what kind of a girl I am? ” 

“ Oh, I know that! ” said Baldie, with a sort of calm 
confidence that smote her. “ What I don’t know— 
yet—is, Are you going to marry me ? ” 

Outside, just opposite the window, she saw Paolo’s 
face. It floated bodiless in the phosphorescent mystery 
of the night—the slight wise smile—the narrowed eye¬ 
lids — 

“ You can’t marry him,” said the smile. “ You 
daren't! ” 

That one illicit act which she thought buried in the 
sepulchre of Things-Past-and-Done-With, cut off 
cleanly, as the buried dead are cut off, from all med¬ 
dling with the Living Present, rose up in its grave- 
clothes: a sinister thing; a thing to be reckoned 
with. . . . 



270 


TEE MOULD 


" I'm sorry, Baldie," she said. “ I appreciate your 
asking me, very, very much indeed. It's a fine thing 
to do. But I can't—take advantage of it. It wouldn’t 
be right." 

“ Why not ? " 

“ Oh, Baldie, I’m not the kind of a girl it’s worth 
making such a sacrifice for. I’m not," she continued, 
miserably, “ the kind of a girl you think, at all." 

“ Is that a noble slosh of sentiment," demanded 
Baldie, suspiciously, “ or do you really mean some¬ 
thing definite ? " 

“ Very definite," said Katherine. 

Baldie, with a sudden convulsive movement, wiped 
his forehead—the gesture of a factory-worker—with 
the back of his hand. 

“ Don’t string it out, Kat! " he whispered. “ Come 
clean! ’’ 

She came clean. She gave him the ugly fact, bare 
of any detail, denuded of all personality. 

There was a short pause. 

Then—“ Oh, if that's all-" he dismissed it. 

“ You’re still a hundred times too good for me, 
Kat. I’m only the more determined now to take 
you away from all this—this muck of a life where 

a girl hasn’t a chance- Damn such a social 

system! ’’ 

“ Oh, Baldie, Baldie," interrupted Katherine, “ you 
don’t understand at all. It wasn’t since I went to 
work. It was before." 

“ I don’t believe it! ’’ 

“ You must believe it. You do believe it." 




RESURRECTION 


271 

He shut off 


His mind went back, searching 
its search abruptly. 

“ Well, anyway-” he said. “ That makes no dif¬ 

ference now.” 

It was the hour when vitality is at its lowest ebb— 
the unreality of everything—that strange, luminous 
quality of the outer night—the nervous exhaustion of 
the evening’s adventure—the omission of dinner—the 
weakness from her recent illness—that made Kathe¬ 
rine tremble from head to foot. 

“ But that’s just what it does, Baldie,” she replied, 
biting off the syllables to keep her teeth from chatter¬ 
ing. “ You see—you don’t—realize. When a thing 
like that has happened—once—it is never done with. 
Unless you should lose your memory.” Baldie made 
an inarticulate sound. “ I wouldn’t dare marry you— 
I wouldn’t dare —I’d be afraid—of not being able to 
put the—thought of him out of my mind.” 

“ Then, for God’s sake, girl,” said Baldie, slowly, 
“ if you cared that way, why didn’t you marry him? ” 

“Marry-? He never-” she stopped, star¬ 

ing at Baldie. She realized what had happened. He 
thought that it had been Davis; and that, to him, ex¬ 
cused her a little. “ Oh, Baldie, you see you don’t 
realize at all. It wasn’t Davis Vaughn. And I didn’t 
1 care ’ in any way that you are thinking of. It was 
Paul Grayson.” 

“ No! Not that little, slimy-” His voice was 

hoarse, unrecognizable, tortured unendurably. It 
cried out against the intolerable illumination which 
that name cast. At last Baldie understood. 







272 


TEE MOULD 


There was a dreadful silence. He showed in vague 
outlines an elbow propped against the wall; hand shad¬ 
ing eyes. Katherine was terror-stricken at what she 
had done. She had not dreamed he would take it so 
hard. Her own emotions had been what she was 
chiefly concerned with: gratitude for Baldie’s splendid 
unselfishness; the fateful impulse, born of her mood 
and the night’s mood, to “ come clean,” to meet his 
generosity with complete honesty. She had not visu¬ 
alized his attitude at all. It had not occurred to her 
that he would have any attitude. It came to her that 
there is such a thing as love, the sort of love she and 
Paolo (she aping Paolo) had scoffed at: a passion 
even more essentially of the spirit than of the body; 
and that Baldie had this love for her. This thing— 
this love in him—was making him suffer. Nothing 
else could account for it. Paolo would not have cared 
if she had told him she had had a dozen lovers. In a 
way he would have been glad: it would have eased 
what little conscience he had in the matter. 

She was awed by Baldie’s suffering. He had been 
so generous . . . and, in return, she had hurt 
him; a frightful, unpremeditated hurt. It had been so 
totally unpremeditated: that fact formed part of her 
awe now. It had never before occurred to her that 
that act of hers had concerned anybody but herself; 
that anybody but herself would have to reckon with 
it. And now she perceived that at the moment when 
she had committed it, she had dealt this blow to the 
man who should afterward love her. . . . 

Baldie dragged his hand across his eyes, casually; 


RESURRECTION 273 

like a boy ashamed of squeezed-out tears on the lashes. 
He dropped his elbow, squared his shoulders. 

“Well,” he said, “you should have let me take 
better care of you—seeing there was no one else to do 
it. „ . . I ought to have done it anyway. . . . 

I’m going to marry you, too. The only thing that 
could possibly prevent it would be if you married 
somebody else.” 

“ Well, I shan’t do that—you may be sure,” said 
Katherine, smiling wanly. 

“ Well, I must go,” said Baldie. “ It’s late.” 

There was a moment’s hesitation; then they shook 
hands, with a firm, brief grip. 

Baldie turned away, tiptoed blunderingly toward 
the door. 

Half-way across the room he stopped. His back, 
she could see that much in the dark, was toward 
her. 

“ Kat,” he said, “ tell me one thing. ... Do 
you still care—for—him ? ” 

Katherine stared out at the night. In that night 
hung the same face; the same eyes, smiling tolerantly, 
observed, benevolently, her passionate struggles to be 
free of its domination. The face seemed to nod, 
slowly, almost imperceptibly; as she had so often seen 
Paolo nod when she had raised her eyes to him with 
a furtive question in them as to whether he was going 
to get his will with her. And suddenly it occurred 
to her that Paolo might sometime come back -- 

“ I never cared,” she said, slowly; her eyes on that 
floating face. “ He just had a power—that compelled 



274 


THE MOULD 


me. If you mean, would he still have that power? I 
don’t know. I think not. But—how can I know ? ” 

She did know. When she met those eyes the other 
side of the glass, and felt her nerves and blood answer 
that smile, and felt his power across seven thousand 
miles, she knew. 

“ Thank you, Kat,” said Baldie, quietly. 

He made his way to the door. 

At the door he paused again. 

“ Good-night,” he said. “ I’ll call up to-morrow and 
find out how everything is going.” 

She could hear him trying to make no noise along 
the hall and down the stairs. Faintly, but decisively, 
the front door closed; then she could hear his foot¬ 
steps, released from caution, echoing on the sidewalk. 

It was done—like a dream. It was all like a dream 
—the whole wild adventure. . . . Had any of it 
really happened? 

From a dark corner, the heavy breathing of un¬ 
happy Blanche in her cot vouched for the reality of 
everything. 

Baldie loved her. And she had hurt him. 

Still she was glad she had told him, even though it 
had hurt him. The thing to be sorry for, if anything, 
was the initial act, not the confession. 

It was a strange, an appalling thing (the volun¬ 
teering of such a confession) ; still, she was not sorry 
■—no! At least she and Baldie had a working-basis, 
now, for whatever their friendship might ripen into. 
There is no absolutely practical working-basis for any 
vital relation but truth. . . . 


RESURRECTION 


275 


( 2 ) 

She undressed—dutifully mindful of the morrow's 
responsibilities—and went to bed. But she was too 
stimulated to fall asleep. She could not get Baldie’s 
question out of her head. She had never “ cared ”; 
not in any important sense; but—would she still be 
in danger—if Paolo should return? Would his hands 
still make plastic clay of her, to the mockery of her 
struggles of will and good judgment? 

It was unthinkable! She had changed. She was 
conscious of a change in herself. Over a new, changed 
Katherine, Paolo would have no power. 

Or was she changed—fundamentally? Could peo¬ 
ple really change—deeper down than the surface? 
The waves are blown up or subside; but the tides and 
the depths are unchanged. 

Dr. Abrams—she grasped eagerly at the recollection 
—believed she could change. Had Dr. Abrams been 
right: were work and “ a decent interest in someone 
else ” reshaping her character to something stronger 
and finer? Was this what Blanche would call “ God’s 
Providence ”: that, out of the ceaseless haphazard 
thumping of life and the monotonous spinning of days 
some definite result should, incredibly, emerge ? 

( 3 ) 

In at the open window stole the little fog-ghosts, 
impalpable till they were thick in the room, inaudible 
till their combined voices merged in a whispering— 
whispering- 

Little ghosts of little dead deeds . , . volup- 



276 


THE MOULD 


tuous little ghosts . . . shameful little ghosts 

. . . little ghosts lickerish for life . . . trying 

to suck life from the dark image of Maxwell and the 
high wildness of Blanche. 

The little ghosts, at last, were bloated, by their 
sucking, with the very blood and marrow of life, 
They were warm and drowsy. They tormented the 
woman who hoped she had changed. The waves are 
blown up or subside; but the tides and the depths are 
unchanged. 

" Decidedly,” said Katherine to herself, in the mom- 
ing, grimly, “ I did well to refuse Baldie.” 

( 4 ) 

The rescue of Blanche had been a matter of thrill¬ 
ing moments: the rehabilitation of Blanche was a mat¬ 
ter of tedious, disheartening months. Blanche was 
completely disorganized, physically, nervously, men¬ 
tally, morally. 

If it had been merely a physical breakdown, she 
could have been placed in the free ward of a city 
hospital. But Blanche, in her delicate moral state* 
could not be entrusted to the perfunctory care of un¬ 
dergraduate nurses and indifferent internes. Neither 
could she be given into the hands of some charitable 
Home where they would wrestle with her in prayer. 
Blanche could not be trusted to anyone less tactful, 
Katherine felt, than herself. 

Meanwhile, Blanche’s moral condition was obviously 
rooted in her physical condition of general debility— 
the work of starvation and bad air and vermin. Moral 


RESURRECTION 


27 ? 


recuperation must be based on physical recuperation; 
and physical recuperation demanded quarts and quarts 
of the best milk per day, dozens and dozens of eggs 
fresh enough to be taken raw, tonics, fresh air, gentle 
exercise under friendly supervision, mild but beguil¬ 
ing diversion for the mind. And all these items, every 
single one of them, cost money; even fresh air—for 
the overbreathed air in the streets about the boarding¬ 
house was not fresh; it had lost its tonic qualities. 
Everything that Blanche imperatively needed cost 
money; and Katherine was short of money and get¬ 
ting shorter. 

She was no longer an employee of Christie’s. 

Anticipating discharge, she had gone early to work 
the day after her expedition to the South Shore, de¬ 
termined to see Mr. DeSchamm first thing; and, if 
possible, to head off Louis Maxwell’s vengeance. 

But Maxwell's vengeance was swifter than she had 
anticipated. Her discharge was instantaneous upon 
her arrival. She was not allowed to go up to her 
place in the suit-department; she was not allowed time 
to take off her hat in social converse with any other 
employee of Christie’s. As she entered the employees’ 
door, she was handed the notice of her dismissal, to¬ 
gether with an envelope containing a week's pay. 

She asked to be permitted to see Mr. DeSchamm. 
Mr. DeSchamm, she was told, was busy. 

That was all. It was very simple. Katherine was 
dismissed, and Mr. DeSchamm was busy. 

So Katherine and Blanche were subsisting on Kath¬ 
erine’s rainy-day hoard; and, though Blanche was not 


278 


THE MOULD 


getting the milk and eggs and tonics, the hoard was 
melting daily—almost hourly—away. 

All day long, Blanche sat in a chair by the window 
of their room and brooded or dozed; and all night 
long she lay awake in her cot. 

Once it had seemed to Katherine that there was a 
light inside Blanche that shone through—shone 
through as if she were a translucent thing—the 
translucent envelope of a white flame. Now the light 
had gone out. 

For Blanche had at last got a conviction of sin. 

She had made a bargain with Maxwell. She had 
sold herself to him. She had become a Magdalen. 
The mere fact that the deal had been blocked was a 
purely fortuitous circumstance. It did not affect the 
moral aspects of the case at all. The conviction of 
sin weighed upon her. It had quenched the high, 
brave flame of her. It had sunk her, up to the eyes, 
in the perception only of her flesh, of her foulness. 
It was in a fair way of running her into a melancholia. 

She talked. All the time that Katherine was there, 
she talked. And all her talk was sodden with despair 
and moral surrender. Her conviction of sin domi¬ 
nated all the workings of her mind, bestriding it 
triumphantly, malignly, like the Old Man of the Sea. 
Sometimes Blanche’s futile talk wore Katherine’s pa¬ 
tience to a thread; sometimes her fighting-heart was 
torn in pieces by the tragedy of it all. 

If Blanche could only divide the responsibility! If 
she would only give a little of it to her father, and a 
little to her temperament, some to the side-room, and 


KEBURRECTI ON 


279 


much to the starved tissues of her body,—then she 
might be able to deal with what was left! But 
Blanche, inheritor of the stem New England con¬ 
science without being inheritor of its compensating 
assurance of salvation by faith in a dogma, would not 
divide any of the responsibility. She insisted on 
carrying it all herself; or, rather, she insisted on being 
crushed under the full weight of it. 

Katherine could not reach her. Blanche was so 
conscious of the moral gulf between them. She was 
constantly reminding Katherine of it She shrank 
from the casual touch of Katherine’s hands, the casual 
contact of Katherine’s body. When Katherine de¬ 
spairingly exhorted her to moral effort, tried to stim¬ 
ulate her by encouragement to rally her forces and 
win out, Blanche would reply only by a shake of the 
head. When Katherine pressed the point, urging upon 
her that all was not lost, that, even in spite of the 
moral slip, she could yet make good with herself, if 
she would, Blanche’s reply was always the same: “ Ah, 
but, you see, you don’t know! ” 

And in the face of that reply, Katherine was always 
dumb. 


(s) 

More than a week had passed. In spite of Kath¬ 
erine’s going without lunches, and letting Blanche go 
without the milk and eggs and tonics, the rainy-day 
fund was getting so low that the bottom was plainly 
perceptible. Katherine tried to keep Blanche from 
knowing it; but Blanche, clairvoyantly, knew. 


280 


THE MOULD 


She told Katherine as much, one evening when the 
latter had returned, exhausted in body and soul from 
a day’s new defeats; and she added sullenly that she 
and Katherine might as well have it out now as later. 
Blanche’s idea of having it out was to tell Katherine 
that Maxwell had her beaten, that there could be no 
respectable future for her, that there could be no 
chance for Katherine while she harbored her, that she 
was a dead weight, heavy in her foulness, about the 
neck of Katherine, that she was going to remove her¬ 
self from the neck of Katherine, and that, as there 
was nothing else for her, she was going on the street. 

“ Oh, stuff! ” cried Katherine, whirling on her. Pa¬ 
tience had broken its last thread, at last. “ Blanche, 
do you think you help matters by talking that way? 
Haven’t I set my mind to fight this through and beat 
Maxwell? Am I going to give in? And, that being 
so, is there any reason why you should make it any 
harder for me than it is already? Why are you de¬ 
termined to help Maxwell, against me? Is there any 
reason why I must feel, every minute that I’m away, 
that perhaps I shall get back and find you have car¬ 
ried out such a threat? Must I worry every minute 
about that, in addition to everything else? Don’t you 
know that if you should do anything like that, it would 
simply mean that I’d have to give my time to hunting 
you and bringing you back ? I’ve set my mind to win 
against Maxwell, and I’m going to win, whether you 
help me or not, but need you make it so hard for 
me? Why don’t you help me, instead of hindering 


RESURRECTION 


281 


Blanche’s eyes were downcast, turned inward as al¬ 
ways now; but a flame of color on her sallow cheeks 
showed how the keen reproach had bitten into her 
vitals. 

“ I can’t help,” she said sullenly. “ I’m done for. 
Maxwell has you beaten.—I’m done for.” 

“ Oh, no you aren’t,” cried Katherine for the hun¬ 
dredth time, in utter exasperation. “ Not unless you 
are willing to be! You can make good with yourself 
—if you would only try! ” 

Blanche smiled, a bitter smile. She raised her eyes, 
that were always dilated and black, now, as if with 
a state of permanent and unnatural excitement, to 
Katherine’s face. 

“ Ah,” she said, for the hundredth time, “ but, you 
see, you don’t know! ” 

“ Don't say that again! ” cried Katherine. . . . 

There was a pause. Then she continued deliberately, 
“ I do know. What almost happened to you, has hap¬ 
pened to me. . . . Only worse. No excuse like 

starvation. Not even—love. ... In spite of it, 
I have made good. And so can you.” 

She did not look at Blanche. She walked over to 
the cheap mirror above their cheap dresser, and stood 
aimlessly staring into it, at the distorted image it gave 
back. She did not think. She dared not think. This 
confession was different, somehow, from the one she 
had made to Baldie. That one she had wanted to 
make; this one she had not wanted to make. Suppose 
that she had made it in vain? Suppose that instead 
of bridging the gulf between her and Blanche, she had 


282 THE MOULD 

only lost by it what little moral ascendancy over the 
latter she had? 

There was a rustle, a stir, faltering steps, a little 
cry. Katherine turned—and caught Blanche in her 
arms as she fell. The two stood for a moment locked 
in that warm, strengthening embrace. There was no 
longer something false between them: they were 
women together. 

“ Don’t think,” said Blanche, between swelling sobs, 
" that I don’t appreciate—what you have done—just 
now. I’m crying—for wonder—and shame! You 
have come down—to my level—voluntarily. In order 
to take me back—up—with you.” She swallowed 
hard. “ Will I fight now—to the last gasp—to make 
good for you ? ” Blanche smiled through her tears: 
tears that had performed their cleansing office joy¬ 
ously, washing clean all the clogged channels of her 
being, till, above their flood, like a beacon, showed 
suddenly Blanche’s high, brave light again. 

“ I will! ” said Blanche. 

( 6 ) 

It seemed incredible that Maxwell should care to 
persecute a mere woman; or that, caring to do so, he 
should do it so thoroughly. 

One knows of broken men who have been hounded 
out of cities in this subterraneous manner; losing, 
mysteriously and without explanation vouchsafed, any 
chance at earning a livelihood; but a woman—that is 
different. The odds are all against her, even under 


RESURRECTION 283 

normal conditions. One might think she would be 
below persecution. 

Yet Maxwell stooped; and devoted all his sinews of 
power to the persecution. It was his genius for petty 
detail that had raised him to his position in the Christie 
firm; and that genius for petty detail was now focussed 
on the preventing of Katherine from securing a new 
position. 

A big man might have raged and sworn, and in 
the end have swept the whole matter of Katherine and 
Blanche aside with a disgusted hand, saying, “ Oh, let 
them go! ” knowing the odds were all against them 
anyway. But Maxwell was not a big man. He was 
a small man. His venom increased as time passed, 
instead of diminishing. It was not stooping, for him, 
to fight a woman. 

In a measure, even, fear stimulated his lust for 

-a* 

revenge on the young woman who had frustrated that 
other lust of his, and humiliated him on top of frus¬ 
tration. He had always the absurd, guilty-conscienced 
terror of blackmail. He must crush Katherine quickly 
and completely, before it should occur to her to set 
the wheels of that Juggernaut car in motion. He 
must crush her quickly and completely; till he should 
have rendered her forever harmless to him. 


(7) 

Katherine, the morning after Blanche’s determina¬ 
tion to win back, went out on the hunt for some un¬ 
obtrusive job that Maxwell should not have a line on. 


284 


THE MOULD 


With so much gained, Katherine did not mean that 
it should all be lost again for want of a job for her. 

She must get a job, and get it before night. 

She looked about her desperately, almost as if she 
expected a job, by sheer compulsion of her dominating 
will, to materialize out of the surrounding environ¬ 
ment. 

The something that materialized was the figure of 
Marie Hunt. 

The last person in the world whom Katherine 
wished to be seen by, at that moment, was Marie 
Hunt. 

Without a second’s hesitation, without the fraction 
of a second’s hesitation, Katherine dived into the near¬ 
est shop door. It was the door of Rosenbaum’s Shoe 
Store. And then she stopped, trapped—for Marie, 
too, had turned into Rosenbaum’s Shoe Store. 

Marie must have seen her, Katherine thought, at 
first. But no, apparently not. Marie’s air indicated 
that she was on business bent. There was only one 
thing for Katherine to do, and she did it. She con¬ 
tinued straight on to the back of the store, and sat 
down on the opposite side of the high-backed settee 
from Marie, and feigned an intention to purchase a 
pair of new shoes. 

Or was Marie on business bent? Mr. Rosenbaum, 
a fat, complacent little Hebrew with oily black hair, 
and a little, smug moustache underneath the racial 
nose, had hastened out of the nether regions of the 
store and grasped Marie fervently by the hand. 

“ Hello, Rosie,” drawled Marie. 


RESURRECTION 


285 


Mr. Rosenbaum’s reply was inaudible. 

“ What’s the matter, Rosie ? ” inquired Marie, with 
her usual happy faculty for commenting on any¬ 
one’s shortcomings in appearance. “ You look 
yellow. Who’s your boot-legger ? He’s poisoning 
you! ” 

“ Poison nothing! ” cried Mr. Rosenbaum, running 
a distracted hand through his sleeked-back hair. 
“ Three girls short this morning—one leaves me last 
week to be married, and two come down sick this 
morning—and what they send me up from the em¬ 
ployment agency! Just scum-!” 

Katherine’s heart-beat quickened. 

‘‘Want to give me a job, Rosie?” inquired Marie, 
lazily. 

“ You know I give you a job,” retorted Mr. Rosen¬ 
baum, tenderly, “ any time you want it. But not in 
my store-” 

“Well, get someone to show me a pair of pumps, 
will you ? ” interrupted Marie, brutally. 

“ But yes, certainly!—Miss Simons! ” Rosie 
haled Katherine’s salesgirl away from her, and sent 
her for pumps for Miss Hunt. 

Marie sat down, back to back with Katherine, and 
Mr. Rosenbaum sat down beside her, and continued 
the conversation. 

“ How like Marie! ” thought Katherine, hearkening 
to the lazy, affected voice of her old-time rival, her 
defeated and humiliated rival. Marie was up to her 
same old game. She was allowing this perfectly 
ineligible little Jew to make love to her so that she 




286 


THE MOULD 


could get fourteen-dollar pumps for ten. And Rosie 
—Rosie was taking it all too seriously. 

Then came Miss Simons with the pumps; and 
Marie bent her attention upon them. 

This was Katherine's chance to escape, and she did 
so, walking soft-footed and swiftly out of Rosen¬ 
baum’s. She would wait till Marie got out, and then 
she would return, and get a job with Marie’s harassed 
suitor. She would take advantage of his necessity, to 
make him take her without recommendations. 

Then a sickening distrust rolled over her. She 
might get the job in spite of Maxwell, but how long 
would Maxwell remain in ignorance of her where¬ 
abouts? Maxwell’s genius for sleuthing was well- 
nigh uncanny. And once he had discovered her 
refuge, how long would it be before he hounded her 
out of it? 

For a moment she weakened; then the thought of 
Blanche nerved her. There was a way to get into 
Rosenbaum’s—another way—a way that would put 
her in solidly, sans references, sans character, sans 
everything, and that would keep her there, Maxwell 
or no Maxwell, till she had had time to make good, 
and to establish herself impregnably on her own 
merits. 

She took that way—for Blanche! 

She waited in the doorway of Rosenbaum’s, like a 
slinking panhandler dogging a charitable million¬ 
aire. 

Marie came to the door. Rosie escorted her 
thither, bowing and all but kissing her hand. A little 


RESURRECTION 


287 


smile wreathed Marie’s lips as she looked from be¬ 
neath lazy eyelids at him; a little contemptuous smile. 
She seemed to say to all observers, “ See what I can 
do to this funny little animal! ” 

Then Rosie opened the door for her, and she passed 
languidly, arrogantly, out. 

Katherine stepped up to her, and spoke to her. 

Marie stopped, stared haughtily, relaxed and ex¬ 
claimed, with a perceptible heightening of her interest 

in life and events, “Well-! Katherine Howard! 

It—it is Katherine, isn’t it ? ” she added, with a faint 
affectation of doubt whose implication was only too 
obvious. 

Katherine flushed. “ It is,” she replied. “ Marie, 
I want to ask a favor of you. You know Mr. Rosen¬ 
baum, don’t you ? ” 

Marie gave Katherine a blighting look that de¬ 
manded, very plainly, “ What business is that of 
yours? ” Aloud she inquired, coolly, “ Has that some¬ 
thing to do with the favor? ” 

“ It has,” said Katherine, stung to self-possession. 
“ Mr. Rosenbaum looked to me as if he was in love 
with you. Is he enough in love with you to give me a 
job for your sake? ” 

“ What ever do you mean ? ” Marie looked Kathe¬ 
rine’s shabby figure over, carefully, from head to 
foot. 

“ Why, you are looking shockingly seedy, my dear! ” 
murmured Marie. 

“ I mean just what I say, Marie,” Katherine re¬ 
plied, steadily, “ I need work, and I need it quickly. 



288 THE MOULD 

Mr. Rosenbaum is short of help, and I want you to 
get me the job." 

What a morsel of gossip for the afternoon's tea- 
table! Kat Howard— Kai Howard! —begging for 
work in a shoe store! 

Marie looked wickedly at her humbled enemy. 

“ Are you really so down and out, Katherine ? M she 
inquired, softly. 

For Blanche's sake! “ I’m down to this," replied 

Katherine, steadily; and opening her pocketbook she 
gave Marie a glimpse of its meagre contents. 

Marie opened the door. “ I’ll see what I can do for 
you," she said, in the grand manner. 

The two reentered Rosenbaum’s. Rosie was flurry¬ 
ing around, distractedly, in his frantic effort to take 
care of an impatient lot of customers with an inade¬ 
quate corps of saleswomen. 

“ Oh, Rosie! " called Marie. 

Rosie turned swiftly. The crease between his eye¬ 
brows almost smoothed out; a surprised and pleased 
smile almost transformed his troubled face. 

“ Rosie," said Marie, taking delight in the situation, 
“ here is a friend—a dear friend—of mine: Miss 
Katherine Howard. We went to school together. She 
has—er—come down in the world considerably since 
—er—we used to—er—you understand. Financial re¬ 
verses—all that sort of thing, you know, Rosie. She’s 
going to work for you. How much will you giye her 
a week? " 

“ Certainly! Certainly!" cried the pleased and 
flattered Rosie, rubbing his hands together. “ I need 


RESURRECTION 


289 


girls badly just now. All that the Agencies have sent 
over are-” Rosie raised his eyes to heaven, elo¬ 

quently. “ It is necessary that I have high-grade girls 
in my store for my patrons.” Rosie executed a gallant 
bow to Marie. “ Just as they must have high-grade 
footwear, so they must have high-grade girls to wait 
on them.” 

“ How much will you pay her, Rosie ? ” insisted 
Marie. 

Rosie looked uneasy. “ Why, the regular pay 
is-” 

Marie cut in icily. “ The regular-?” She 

raised her eyebrows. 

“ Of course, for you , Miss Hunt, I do a little bet¬ 
ter. . . .” 

Marie turned to Katherine. “ Can you live on 
that ? ” she demanded brusquely. 

Katherine could hardly answer. Rage at the un¬ 
necessary humiliation that Marie was putting upon 
her almost choked her. She swallowed hard. But 
she replied, steadily, with a steady smile, “ I can live 
on it till I have made myself worth more than that to 
Mr. Rosenbaum.” 

“If you need more help, don’t hesitate to let me 
know,” said Marie, again in the grand manner. And 
she went out. 

Marie had scarcely vanished, before Rosie’s anxie¬ 
ties engulfed him again. 

“ You can take your hat right off and go to work, 
Miss Howard,” he directed. 

Katherine did not stop for luncheon that day, in 





290 


THE MOULD 


view of the shortage of help. She worked straight 
on, under Rosie’s approving eye. The only stop she 
made was a brief one, just long enough to telephone 
a message to Blanche: “ We win! ” 


CHAPTER XV 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 

(I) 

It was eighteen months since Katherine had en¬ 
tered the employ of Mr. Rosenbaum. The evening 
was a warm one in August. In a fifty-cent moving- 
picture theatre that made vain boast of its temperature, 
the second performance of the evening was just be¬ 
ginning. 

Vernon’s Film Tours Corporation was showing a 
picture of the Amazon country. 

In front of the screen, bristled up, like cactus, out 
of a vague nether dusk, rows upon rows of heads, set 
stiffly on attentive necks. To-night’s film-tour was a 
thriller. From the cheaper seats, little gasps, sibilant 
breaths, even an occasional squeal, greeted all too life¬ 
like pictures of coiling serpents, strange spiders, sin¬ 
ister fungi. And suddenly, with the delightful in¬ 
consequence common only to films and nightmares, 
the tour was showing deep snows, ice-bound rivers, 
glittering expanses, sledges and furry dogs: Alaska. 

" Gosh ! ” said Baldie. “ Some country! ” 

“ Surely is/’ agreed Katherine. 

“ Saw Tony Clarke—yes, old Tony, large as life and 
twice as natural—the other day. He and another fel- 

291 


292 


THE MOULD 


low are going up next month on a hunting trip. Bear 
—silver fox—great hunting up in that country, Kat.” 

“ Going, Baldie ? ” 

“Who? Me? Not so’s you’d notice it! What 
d’you think lam? Just when I’m getting in solid with 
the old man, working like a horse this way ? Say, Kat, 
did you know I’m in line for another raise—a real 
he-man’s salary, this time? ’Nough to marry ’most 
anybody on? H’m! Think I’m going to take any 
chances, taking a three months’ vacation right now? 
I’ll tell the blue-eyed world I am—not! ” 

Katherine was silent. She was thinking that an¬ 
other raise, a real he-man’s salary, would inevitably 
mean that Baldie would again ask her to marry him. 
And she ought to do it, this time, or else let him go. 

It wasn’t fair to him to keep him hanging on, this 
way. “ Cut bait, fish, or get out of the boat! ”—It 
was a favorite expression of Baldie’s, and it seemed 
to her that it applied very well to her. Either she 
ought to make up her mind to marry him, or else she 
ought to refuse to let him keep on seeing her. If he 
didn’t see her, he would soon fall in love with some 
nice girl and marry. 

And she couldn’t marry him. She didn’t dare. 

She felt very blue. . . . 

It wasn’t all the problem of Baldie that made her 
blue. It was partly the Cooperative Apartments for 
working women and girls. Only that afternoon, Sat¬ 
urday, she had been trying to interest Angela in the 
Cooperative Apartments for working women and 
girls. And Angela was enthusiastic and eager to give 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 293 


her time—would be glad to serve on a Board of Di¬ 
rectors or as Patroness of a Benefit (if the right names 
could be associated with hers on the list)—couldn’t 
give much money just now as they had just broken 
ground for their new home (thirty rooms; and serv¬ 
ants’ quarters over a beautiful big garage)—and they 
felt a little “ hard up ”- 

“ How awfully well you are looking, Kathy 
dear! ” she had murmured by way of changing the 
subject. 

Katherine was looking well, which was at least 
partly a matter of clothes. She no longer had to put 
a winter rose on April’s hat. She could afford a hat 
a season—even two hats: and a nice blouse; and a 
suit with good lines. For Katherine was manager of 
Rosenbaum’s Boston Store, Rosie having at last 
achieved the realization of a long-cherished dream and 
opened up a store in New York. He was in New 
York four days out of six, thus leaving the conduct 
of affairs in Boston largely in Katherine’s hands. 

This substantial honor had not tumbled into her lap 
as a gratuity from her star. Katherine had achieved 
it by the quite definite application of every ounce of 
her native intelligence, social training, personality and 
will-power. She had concentrated every faculty she 
had on mastering the art of selling shoes. She had 
set her will and her wit to the selling of more shoes 
per week, per day, per hour, than any other sales¬ 
woman could sell, and, furthermore, to the delicate 
task of keeping Rosie cognizant of the fact, without 
her thrusting it upon him, that she was selling more 



ZV4: THE MOULD 

shoes per week, per day, per hour, than any other 
saleswoman. 

Every other interest of her life had been subordi¬ 
nated to these aims. If luncheon conflicted with the 
possible sale of a pair of shoes then luncheon gave 
way. She went to bed early six nights a week so as 
to be fresh for work every morning; she took in a 
show religiously every Saturday night so as not to get 
stale; she regulated her diet to avoid every chance of 
a rebellious digestion or a sulky liver. 

Her absolute determination to succeed disciplined 
her: for only by disregarding irrelevant whims and 
moods and conserving and directing every energy to 
the use of her business could she hope to make an 
unusual success. And an unusual success was what 
she was after. Therefore there must be no leaks; no 
dissipation of herself. 

Her determination to succeed was not a mere heri¬ 
tage of business instinct from her father—though that 
instinct played, indubitably, its part. Success with 
shoes she saw rather as a means to an end than as an 
end in itself. 

At first that end had been merely the safeguarding 
of Blanche and herself from Maxwell’s spite. She 
must get in so solid at Rosenbaum’s before her refuge 
was discovered, that all the Maxwells on earth could 
not dislodge her. 

This crisis past, came a new phase. She looked on 
all that Maxwell had made Blanche and her suffer, 
and a hot flame of wrath burned up in her. S&e de¬ 
sired to punish him. To revenge herself and Blanche 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 295 

and all the other girls who had suffered at his hands, 
by one strong blow. 

“ Don’t hate him, Kitty! ” Blanche had warned her, 
at this point. “ It won’t hurt him, and it will harm 
you. A spot of hate is a regular cancer in a person’s 
soul. You cut it out! . . . After all, Kitty, we’ve 

no call to be anything but sorry for him, the poor 
beast! We have our health and our work, some 
friends, and every prospect of a future even brighter 
than the present. And what, in comparison, has he ? ” 

“ Money! ” said Katherine, “ and power to wreck 
any of Christie’s girls he takes a fancy to.” 

“ Much fun for him!” retorted Blanche. “The 
bugaboos have him scared to a frazzle every minute of 
his life! Scared somebody’ll blackmail him! Scared 
his wife will divorce and disgrace him! His wife and 
daughters loathe everything about him but his money— 
he told me that once, poor beast. Pooh, Kitty! We 
can’t get much ahead of the Bible, even in this enlight¬ 
ened day and generation ! ‘ Vengeance is Mine,’ saith 

the Lord, ‘ I will repay.’ So far as vengeance goes, 
we may very well leave Maxwell in the hands of the 
Lord, I should say.” 

“No use, Blanche!” retorted Katherine. “I don’t 
ever expect to get your approval. You’re an artist— 
and I’m a fighter. That’s the whole story of our dif¬ 
ference in attitude toward Louis Maxwell. You 
philosophize about him and leave him to the Lord. I 
abhor him and all his works and I mean to fight him 
till one of us drops.” 

Blanche looked dubious. 


296 


THE MOULD 


“ Warfare is not what it was/’ replied Katherine. 
“ One man turning a crank nowadays can shell a city. 
I mean to turn the crank.” 

" Of what?” 

“ Well, first ”—she checked it off on her fingers— 
“ the Cooperative Apartments. I’m going to pepper 
the city with them before I get through. I’m going 
to pepper it so thick that Maxwell and his kind won’t 
have a chance—not a chance in all the world—of 
getting a girl by unfair means. 

“ Second, publicity—public sentiment. 

“ Third—but we can leave that alone as yet. 

“ Watch me! I won’t know when I’m beaten; and 
that kind you can't beat! ” 

Blanche kissed her. 

“ I may be only a good-for-nothing artist,” she said, 
“ but you shall have every cent of my rug-money to 
put into your fight! It may not be a drop in the 
bucket after your assessments of the Idle Wives of the 
Rich; but it will have a wonderful moral push to it, 
for I shall have earned it every cent myself by the 
labor of my own hands for the purpose. Don’t tell 
me there isn’t money—and money! ” 

By her rug-money, Blanche meant the returns from 
the sale of a rug every so often, designed and made by 
herself. For her dream—the dream that had drawm 
her to the city—was coming true, thanks to Katherine. 

The latter had awakened, the morning after her 
encounter with Marie, in Rosenbaum’s, to a realiza¬ 
tion that the barrior of pride had vanished. Whether 
she herself had destroyed it, as an earthquake might, 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 297 

in her convulsive effort to bow a humble head before 
Marie for Blanche’s sake; or whether it had just, like 
the Walls of Jericho, fallen down beneath the hand of 
the Lord God—at any rate, it was gone. 

The light that streamed into her soul across the 
place where it had been showed her at once what 
further she must do for Blanche’s sake. 

Moral regeneration was all right, but the moral was 
rooted in the physical. Katherine must go at it from 
the top and the bottom simultaneously. She must, 
simultaneously, provide Blanche with milk and eggs 
and fresh air and outings, and with some form of 
work which would set her up, high and safe, where 
Maxwell could not reach her to terrorize her. 

Both these provisions would take money, and as 
Katherine had not the money, and could not immedi¬ 
ately earn the money, there was but one answer: she 
must borrow the money. 

It was to Baldie, who knew all the private facts of 
the case, that she turned with the request that he 
negotiate a substantial loan for her. 

Baldie, thus appealed to, had grinned. 

“ How’ll this do, for a starter? ” he had asked. And, 
reaching into his vest-pocket he had taken out a wallet, 
from which he drew a dingy and battered envelope. 

In it were the very bank-bills he had placed in it 
that day at Dr. Abrams’ hospital. He had never, he 
told her with a sort of boyish pride, even at the lowest 
ebb of his finances, borrowed one of them. 

This opportune sum not only provided Blanche with 
milk and eggs and a weekly holiday in the country, but 


298 


THE MOULD 


also enabled her to take a first-rate course in interior 
decorating. From this she had been graduated with 
flying colors, and had got a position immediately after¬ 
ward with Brinton and Blake, the decorators who are 
best-known as the creators of Mrs. Oliver Deacon’s 
famous Butterfly Room. 

But rugs were her dream; and for six months she 
had spent most of her evenings at the Library, study¬ 
ing books on rugs till she knew the famous rugs of 
the world like a habitue of all the Bazaars from Cairo 
to Shanghai. With her first savings she had bought 
a loom and materials. By day she worked for Brin¬ 
ton and Blake; in the evening she worked for her 
dream. 

And her rugs, through the efforts of Angela and 
Katherine’s other wealthy friends, were achieving 
quite a vogue. She had more orders than she could 
possibly fill; and the “ rug-money ” might well prove 
to be quite a substantial little contribution to the 
fund that was to build the first Cooperative Apart¬ 
ments. . . . 

“ I hate a state of society,” Katherine had said, in 
urging her Apartments on Angela’s favorable consid¬ 
eration, “ that deals all the cards in the pack to the 
wealthy libertine, and then pushes shop-girl and 
factory-girl in to play the game with him—a game 
with such stakes! My Apartments will deal one card, 
at least, to the girl.” 

She showed Angela the fascinating plans, originated 
by herself with all and more than the enthusiasm and 
ingenuity she had put into the creation of the pink- 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 299 


and-gray villa, and brought into working-form by Bill 
Jensen, a young architect who was interested in 
Blanche, under the sympathetic supervision of his 
Chiefs in the firm. 

Here were the small but economically-planned 
rooms, every one with direct ventilation and natural 
lighting; here was the standardized kitchen; here the 
pleasant dining-room with a few “ chummy alcoves ” 
off it to encourage beaux; here the general parlor, 
with a good floor for dancing, and, opening off it, half 
a dozen little private parlors; here the comfortable 
two-room suite for the “ House Mother ”; and here 
the offices of the novel Employment Bureau which was 
to keep tabs not only on positions and girls, but also 
on the characters of employers. 

Angela raised her eyebrows at this last item. 

“ I’m afraid you will get into some libel suits, my 
dear,” she said. 

“ Nothing I'd like better,” replied Katherine, briskly. 
“ Such a suit, with the attendant publicity, would do 
this cause more good than any amount of tepid propa¬ 
ganda ! ” 

“ H’m-” Angela conceded the point dubiously. 

" But, my dear, will it ever in the world pay its 
way? ” 

“ Absolutely 1 The idea is that when my girls have 
work, they will pay for their lodging and board—on a 
cooperative basis; and when they are out of regular 
employment, they will work out their keep by doing 
the chamber-work, laundry-work, waiting on table and 
so forth. It can be done, and return between three 



300 


THE MOULD 


and four per cent, on the vested capital.’’ She was 
prepared, in a businesslike way, to demonstrate this 
fact. She had financial reports from similar experi¬ 
ments in San Francisco and Cleveland; also estimates 
separately prepared by J. B. Wiltmer, the Public Ac¬ 
countant, Mr. Tyndall, of Tyndall and Blades, Bill’s 
Chiefs, and Mrs. Gaynor Henry, that enterprising and 
successful manager of the Woman Painters’ and Art 
Students’ Club which houses, on a cooperative basis, 
nearly four hundred women and girls. 

Angela glanced them over. “ Paper profits, Kathy, 
I’m afraid,” she murmured sadly. 

Then she brightened up and said that though she 
could do little in a financial way, just at present, she 
should be more than glad to give what time and in¬ 
fluence she had to spare- 

“ Coming Attractions ” had monopolized the screen. 

“ How about it, Kat ? ” Baldie was whispering, 
huskily, in her ear. “ When I get that raise—care to 
take a chance on me? Oh, Kat, won’t you please 
marry me, girl ? ” 

Katherine patted the hand of his with which he had 
tried to take hers. Her eyes were troubled. She was 
thinking of something else that Angela had said, that 
afternoon. She had remarked, quite casually, for she 
had almost forgotten that there had once been a little 
affair between her brother and Katherine, “ Oh, by 
the way, Kitty—Paul’s coming home next month. 
And this time I guess he’ll stay.” 

“ How about it, girl ? ” 

She shook her head. 



A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 301 


( 2 ) 

Katherine met Paolo on the street, face to face, a 
week or so after his arrival. She was just coming 
out of Rosenbaum’s, on her way to the inexpensive 
restaurant where she usually lunched. 

In spite of the fact that she had been schooling her¬ 
self for this encounter, which she knew would occur, 
ever since Angela’s remark had warned her, she felt 
herself turn pale. The blood fled to her heart. There 
was a gray whirling in her head, as if she were about 
to faint. 

She mastered herself; bowed politely; would have 
passed on, but that Paolo blocked the way. 

“ My dear Katherine! ” he exclaimed, in accents of 
well-simulated surprise. His old familiar head-to- 
foot scrutiny took her all in. She was very smart, in 
one of the autumn’s new suits of gray tweed. 

She extended her hand; forced a smile. 

“ Nice to see you, Paolo,” she remarked, striving 
to make it casual, but hearing, in her own ears, that 
she had not quite succeeded. “ When did you get 
back? So sorry I haven’t time to chat—I’m a work¬ 
ing woman, now, you know, with only just so many 
minutes for luncheon ! ” 

Paolo waved it aside with an airy gesture that she 
recalled all too well. He turned. “ I shall walk with 
you, my dear Katherine. Unfortunately, I have al¬ 
ready lunched.” 

As he walked, he talked. His mellow voice rambled 
on and on, agreeably, conferring upon Katherine the 
benefit of his renewed impressions of his native city: 


302 


TEE’MOVLD 

“ These streets—Dio mio! They say the cows laid 
them out. One believes it! But—what an extraordi¬ 
nary idea for men to let their cattle lay out their cities! 
Enchantingly American, non a vero? . . 

His pleasant, ironic monologue gave Katherine a 
breathing space in which to collect herself; to reas¬ 
semble her self-possession, her self-respect, her pride, 
and her perspective. 

She was not deceived by the apparent fortuitousness 
of the encounter. Months of attention to the art of 
divining the temper and minds of prospective pur¬ 
chasers of shoes had given Katherine considerable in¬ 
sight into the subtly revealing adjustments of eyelids 
and nostrils and chin muscles. Paolo’s smooth, non¬ 
committal visage was no longer a bewildering mask to 
her; his plausible start and smile of pleased surprise at 
encountering her did not deceive her. She perceived 
with perfect clearness that he had sought her out and 
chosen the least compromising way of doing so; the 
way that would leave him free to follow up, or not to 
follow up, the meeting, as he, after seeing her, might 
wish. 

Why had he sought her out? Was it only curios¬ 
ity? 

At the door of her restaurant they came, by mutual 
consent, to a stop. Katherine did not wish him to eat 
with her; and, as for Paolo, he had no desire to lunch 
in a place where he could not get the delicacies he 
liked. 

Abruptly he dropped the aimless conversation. 

“ I may call on you ? ” 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 303 

Katherine hesitated. “ I’m very busy-” she 

temporized. 

“ Saturday evening ?” 

“ Saturday evenings I go to the movies with Baldie 
Daggett/’ 

“ The bread-and-butter baby! ” 

She conveyed an impression of aloofness. Paolo 
was aware that his clever characterization had not 
invoked as sympathetic a response from her as of yore. 

“ What! ” he murmured, intensely amused. “ Is it 
to be Bread-and-Butter—in the end ? ” 

She gazed at him rather absent-mindedly, as if she 
were focussing on some point beyond him. . . . 

The occupant of a passing automobile stared at the 
couple, then bowed with a queerly vivid smile. Paolo 
raised his hat. It was Marie Hunt. Katherine 
nodded absently to her; everywhere she went, she 
seemed always to be running into Marie. . . . 

“ Sunday evening,” she said, at last, slowly, her eyes 
fixed absently on the vanishing automobile with Marie 
in it, “ you may call on us.” 

“ Us! ” 

“ Miss Viveash and I—we have an apartment to¬ 
gether.” 

Paolo looked subtly discomfited. He had supposed 
Katherine had an apartment by herself. 

“ This Miss Viveash, Katherine,” he murmured. “ I 
do not doubt that she is very charming, but—can’t 
we—meet somewhere ? ” 

Katherine stared. “ Why in the world should we? ” 
she demanded. 



304 THE MOULD 

And Paolo, in the face of her stare, had no answer 
for that. 


( 3 ) 

As it turned out, however, he did not meet Blanche. 

Katherine told Blanche that Paolo was going to 
call; and told her exactly who Paolo was; and Blanche 
said she did not care to meet Paolo. Blanche said she 
wouldn’t, couldn’t meet Paolo. For if she met him, 
she said, she couldn’t shake hands with him: she 
should be sure to put her hands behind her; and that 
would make an awkward situation. 

Katherine laughed at Blanche’s absurd passion in 
the matter; but Blanche hugged Katherine, and said 
there was no Katherine but Katherine, and Blanche 
was her prophet. 

As a matter of fact, said Blanche, reproachfully, 
why should Katherine herself care to see such a man? 

Katherine said to Blanche exactly what she had been 
saying to herself in that instant at the door of Crosby’s 
when she had seemed to be focussing her attention on 
some point beyond Paolo’s head. She said that if she 
fought it to a finish she knew she would win; but that 
if she didn’t fight to a finish she would keep on 
being—all her life long—afraid. 

( 4 ) 

It did not seem, superficially, much like a battle: 
that gay little Sunday evening tete-a-tete in Kather¬ 
ine’s and Blanche’s delightful sitting-room, with the 
constant slamming of Blanche’s loom in the workroom, 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 305 

where Blanche, in defiance of all Sabbath evening 
etiquette, was at work. That was the excuse Kathe¬ 
rine made for Blanche’s non-appearance: that Blanche 
was rushed, night and day, and couldn’t even stop to 
shake hands. 

It was a battle, nevertheless. 

Across the little sitting-room, Katherine was able, 
as Paolo talked, to observe him somewhat critically. 

A little older, Paolo was. He could scarcely be 
much beyond the middle thirties yet, but the marks, 
the faint prophecies of deterioration were already 
visible in him. A little shorter-looking, a little bulkier, 
his girth perceptibly increased: the good things of the 
table were gradually having their will of him. His 
sleek hair, left a little longer for the purpose, was 
carefully brushed back to hide an incipient bald-spot. 
And the three flights of stairs (the elevator stopped 
running early on Sunday evenings) had made him 
breathe hard. Still, it was Paolo. The same Paolo. 

His conversation, too, was the same old conversa¬ 
tion : mostly personalities, spiced suggestively. 

“ You have not changed, mia bella . Not so much 
as that!” He flipped a bit of nothing into the air, to 
show how little she had changed. “A little matured, 

perhaps-” Yes, it was Paolo. He looked at her, 

across the little room, with the slight, wise smile, 
grown no older; and the past was re-created; and 
Katherine was afraid. 

She replied, “ I think you will find I have changed 
a great deal! ” And she jumped up from her chair, 
and wheeled a tea-wagon between them, like a barri- 



306 


TEE MOULD 


cade. She went to the cupboard and got a tin of some 
patent delicacy, and a biscuit-jar, and a copper chafing- 
dish. All these she piled on the tea-wagon, between, 
as it were, herself and the Paolo she was afraid of. 

Paolo watched her thoughtfully as she went about 
this business. 

“ So you are in love, my child 1 ” he remarked, as 
she attached the chafing-dish to an electric socket, and 
emptied the contents of the tin into it. 

Katherine glanced down at him quickly. 

“ What makes you think that ? ” 

“ When a charming young woman, with whom one 
shares a fragment of common past ”—he forced 
her eyes with his upward gaze—“ declares in a defiant 
tone that she has changed-” Paolo smiled. 

Then Katherine was aware of a miracle. Pressed 
so hard and so unfairly, she was aware that her 
embarrassment and her fear had dropped from her. 
It was as if she realized that an antagonist who stoops 
to unfair means is not one to be afraid of. Miracu¬ 
lously, she felt herself mistress of herself and of the 
situation. 

Paolo sensed the change, too. She could see that, 
and it gave her added confidence. 

She simulated thought. 

“ It hadn’t occurred to me-” she remarked. She 

snapped on the electric current. “No, I should hardly 
diagnose it as love. Mightn’t it be—self-respect?” 

The slight, wise smile surveyed her curiously, toler¬ 
antly; but it no longer affected her. Formerly, in all 
her intercourse with Paolo, he had dominated every 



A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 307 

situation. Now, because of some change in herself, 
rather than any radical change in him, she dominated. 
She had over Paolo the advantage that the practical 
man of affairs, if he knows enough to exercise it, has 
over the male dilettante. Katherine was only man¬ 
ager of a shoe store; yet it gave her substance; it 
gave her, in her own eyes, an advantage over Paolo, 
who was manager of nothing at all. 

“ I remember-” murmured Paolo. “ You never 

did believe in love! ” 

“ Still, I believe in many things now that I didn’t 
believe in then.” 

“ May one inquire what ? ” asked Paolo, preparing 
to be amused. 

She gave the contents of the chafing-dish a stir. 

“ Oh—a lot of moral abstractions. You would be 
bored! ” 

“ But among them love ? ” 

“ Yes, among them love.” 

“ But how charming! ” 

She gave the chafing-dish another stir. 

“ No—I don't believe you would find it charming— 
or even interesting. The idea would bore you dread¬ 
fully, Paolo. Love ought to be, it seems to me, a sort 
of complete comradeship. The sort of thing that 
would result in marriage if all the marriage-laws were 
wiped off the face of the earth. Just because a man 
and woman would want to stick together through thick 

and thin-” She laughed. “ I’m orating; but 

blame yourself! You asked for it! But now let’s 
try this, instead! ” She took a tiny pate-shell from the 




308 


THE MOULD 


biscuit-jar, righted it deftly, between fork-tines and 
spoon-tip, on Paolo’s plate; filled it with the smoking 
compound from the chafing-dish, which was giving out 
a captivating aroma. 

“ A delightful oration, my dear child! ” replied 
Paolo, his attention somewhat divided between his own 
words, and the plate which was to come to him. “ I 
confess, however, that my own conception is a trifle 
different—Love ?—Eternal Spring—the call of the bird 
to its mate of a month—of the youth to the maid—the 
instinct of field and jungle—that does not , alas, lead 
infallibly to the Hymeneal Altar-” 

But the situation was still Katherine’s. He could 
not get back the control of it by any such cheap and 
flagrant allusiveness as that. 

“ Oh, but what’s the use of orating about that 
kind?” She flicked the limiting adjective lightly. 
" Your old friend Schopenhauer, whom you used to be 
always quoting ”— she dared refer to the past, now— 
“ has done it up so thoroughly.” 

“ But so unromantically,” murmured Paolo, on the 
finish of a generous mouthful of Chicken a la King. 

“Well— isn't it unromantic?” retorted Katherine; 
“—that kind of love ? ” and dismissed the sub¬ 
ject. . . . 


( 5 ) 

Before the evening was over, Paolo had to admit 
that her claim was based on solid fact. 

“ Hai ragione —you are right! ” he admitted. “ You 
have changed! ” 



A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 309 

He had to admit that the change had not made her 
less attractive. On the contrary! There was about 
her a sort of remoteness, a sort of delicate aloofness, a 
sort, one might say, of chastity or continence, that 
baffled, perplexed, and allured him, all at once. 

He was piqued. Looking at the past, which should 
have predicated a quite different present, he was 
amazed. Could it be that she was in love after all, 
with young Daggett, the Bread-and-Butter Baby, to 
whom Saturday evenings belonged? He could not 
believe it, but the idea irritated him, nevertheless. 
Probably Daggett wanted to marry her—and she was 
a smart girl—she meant, probably, to rehabilitate her¬ 
self that way! 

The thought of Katherine, rehabilitating herself by 
such a desperate measure, struck a chord of pathos in 
Paolo’s somewhat mellowed nature. Whose fault was 
it that Katherine needed to rehabilitate herself ? His: 
Paolo’s. Whose fault would it be if, in the effort, 
she committed such a sublime piece of folly as to 
marry Daggett ? His: Paolo’s. A noble impulse 
moved him to save Katherine from such a fate. 

Paolo knew the use of a mirror; he knew that his 
waist-measure was getting bigger, and that the bald- 
spot was getting bigger, too. His waist-measure would 
never be any smaller (for Paolo was not one to diet) 
and his bald-spot would never be any smaller, either. 
He was rapidly approaching the age when Pan is al¬ 
ways uncomfortably suspicious that the dryads are 
laughing at him. Paolo had pursued a dryad, on ship¬ 
board coming over, with a somewhat undignified ardor 


310 


THE MOULD 


in one of his girth, and everybody had heard her laugh. 
He was approaching the age when a bachelor wonders 
if he would not better have married; if he would not 
better marry, even yet; the age when he realizes 
he must insure the future by marriage since not for 
very much longer can he count on receiving the 
dryads’ favors as pleasant gratuities—since not for 
very much longer (if he be at all sensitive, and 
at all vain) can he even, with peace of mind, buy 
them. 

He was in a position to marry if he wanted to. 
His father, at his death, had put Paolo’s share of the 
estate in the form of a trust-fund, so that Paolo should 
not be able to touch it, and should be insured an am¬ 
ple income all the rest of his natural life. 

The usual trouble, when a bachelor reaches Paolo’s 
age, with Paolo’s limitations, and decides to marry, is 
that he finds he can’t have it both ways. He wants 
a wife, but he wants her to be something of a dryad, 
too; and the dryads are all busy peeping at young 
Pans piping. 

But for Paolo it was beautifully simple! Here was 
Katherine, whom he had wronged, of whose life he 
had done his best to make a wreck, looking for re¬ 
habilitation. What could he do, indeed, as an honor¬ 
able man, but offer, at the first possible opportunity, 
which was now, to right the wrong, to salvage her 
life, to rehabilitate her? 

And . . . and . . . ! 

He, Paolo, would have it both ways. For Kath¬ 
erine, if he could judge at all- ... A peach 



A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 311 

that is good when it is green will be better when it 
is ripe. . . . 

He knew it was his Rubicon, but he crossed it, 
though with a ceremonial and somewhat fantastic gait. 

“ Unica speranza del mio cuorel” his speech con¬ 
cluded, with whimsical pomp. “ By all the rules of 
serious proposals, I should get down on my knees, 
but-" 

He paused. There was a disconcerting expression 
in Katherine's eyes. 

“ Paolo," she said, incredulously, “ are you propos¬ 
ing to me? Marriage? n 

“ I am,” began Paolo, a little annoyed. 

For a moment he thought she was going to laugh. 
For one painful moment, he seemed to hear the laugh¬ 
ter of all the dryads in the world echoing in his ears 
—the sensitive ears of slightly superannuated Pan. 

But Katherine did not laugh. 

“ I appreciate what I suppose must be your motives 
in asking me to marry you, Paolo/' she said, quite 
gently. “ I suppose—if you had asked me—five years 
ago—I should have done it. . . .” 

She stared at him thoughtfully. 

“ But not now," she continued, at last. “ Not now. 

“ You see," she said, “ there is no reason why you 
should marry me, or I you, do you think? " 

Paolo rose gallantly to the occasion. He replied, 
with the effect of a bow, “ I permitted myself the 
hope-" 

As Katherine receded from him, growing more and 
more remote, certain memories of her in other as- 




312 


THE MOULD 


pects drew nearer and nearer, growing more and 
more warm and palpable, more and more alluring. 
He leaned suddenly across the little table that sepa¬ 
rated them. His voice was vibrant and imperative. 
The five years dropped from him. In spite of glim¬ 
mering bald-spot and rounding waist-coat, he pos¬ 
sessed once more, by the quality that was his, the 
.illusion of entire desirability, the irresistible appeal 
of passion and of pain. 

“ I hoped,” he said, “ that you might love me— 
still.” 

Katherine looked at him. The years had dropped 
magically away. He was Paolo, Paolo the entirely 
desirable, his youth, his slenderness, his magnetic 
power renewed by the illusion. And yet there was, 
somewhere, a change. . . . She located it in her¬ 

self. 

“ No, Paolo,” she said, “ I don’t love you. I’m 
sorry.” 

There was a pause—just a hair’s breadth too long. 

He withdrew stiffly. He misunderstood. He 
thought it was the waist-measure and the bald-spot. 

He rose. 

Katherine rose, too. She held out her hand. 

u I’m sorry, Paolo,” she repeated. 

“ Don’t be sorry,” said Paolo, with a smile. Al¬ 
ready he had a breath-taking sense of narrow, very 
narrow escape. He was, miraculously, still free. 
Free to pipe his way, adown the long vista of the 
years, on a gilded pipe. And though now and then 
a foolish dryad might titter, to a wise dryad the piping 


A PROPOSAL OP MARRIAGE 313 

of an elderly Pan on a golden pipe is sweeter than 
youth’s sweetest flutings through the hollowed 
reeds. . . . 

“ I shall see you again ? " he asked, indecisively. 

“ What’s the use ? ” replied Katherine, quite bluntly. 

“True. . . What was the use, since what had 
been was no more? . . . Besides, he perceived, 

with the insight of a truly chivalrous nature, that she 
wished to be left unembarrassed by encounters with 
him, in the work of reconstructing her life. . . . 

“ Then—addio! ” . . . With a little Italian, a 

touch of pensive sadness, a slight, lingering pressure 
of her hand, he achieved, at last, the effective exit— 
so different from the time that Angela and his mother 
had bundled him unceremoniously out of the 
scene. . . . 


( 6 ) 

On his way down-stairs, Paolo encountered Baldie 
coming up, three steps at a time. Baldie was in a 
hurry, for he knew it was late for a call. The con¬ 
viction had been growing on him all the evening that 
he had to see Katherine. His call of the evening be¬ 
fore had been a fiasco. He and Katherine had both 
been constrained, awkward, forced, with each other. 
Their sense of splendid spontaneous comradeship had 
vanished, and their strainings after it had only made 
its absence more apparent. 

There was a shadow between them: the shadow of 
Paul Grayson. 

Katherine wanted to bring up the subject—to men- 


314 


THE MOULD 


tion, rather casually, that she had seen him—that to¬ 
morrow evening she was going to have him here and 
fight the thing out to a definite conclusion—and that 
she expected to win. But somehow she couldn’t seem 
to open the topic. 

Baldie, unknown to Katherine, wanted to broach 
the same subject. He was trying, all the evening, to 
get to the point of telling Katherine that Marie Hunt 
had told him that she had seen Katherine and Paolo 
lunching together. 

Of course he knew it wasn’t true. Marie was such 

a liar- And if it was true, of course there was 

some explanation. Not that he wanted any explana¬ 
tion. He wanted to bring the subject up, not to hear 
any explanation, but to assure Kat of his complete 
confidence in her and of his wish to trust without 
explanations. The fear that she would misunderstand 
—would think he was asking for the explanations he 
didn’t want—held him back. 

So they had talked on and on, of irrelevant things, 
miserably, till Baldie, an hour earlier than his wont, 
had gone abruptly. And all to-day he had been miser¬ 
able, till now, just at bedtime, he had recaptured the 
mood of perfect, unafraid frankness that usually char¬ 
acterized his and Katherine’s friendship. There 
would be only a moment—but he felt that in that 
moment could be said all that needed to be said to 
erase the shadow of Paolo from between him and 
Kat. . . . 

Paolo, emerging from Katherine’s suite, after his 
narrow and undeserved escape, was looking well 



A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 315 


pleased with himself. He emanated an atmosphere of 
triumph, of self-complacence, of amorous reminis¬ 
cence. As he greeted Baldie, offhand, he slid a slight, 
quizzical smile over the Bread-and-Butter Baby 
(though he was forced to envy him the wind that 
could take him up three flights of stairs two steps at 
a time). Baldie stopped so short he almost lost his 
balance; he recovered himself, wheeled, his fists 
clenching automatically. But Paolo, all unaware, was 
already half a flight down, tripping jauntily on, smil¬ 
ing reminiscently. Baldie gathered himself to make 
the intervening space in one leap—then the heart went 
out of him. Luncheon the other day—to-night the 
evening—there could be only one explanation: Kath¬ 
erine still cared. 


CHAPTER XVI 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 

(l) 

Birmingham, Massachusetts, is an important in¬ 
dustrial center which would seem as large as it is, 
were it not dwarfed by its proximity to Boston. Bos¬ 
ton, however, self-complacent giant as it is, would go 
barefoot, so to speak, were it not for Birmingham; 
and so, indeed, would Chicago and Philadelphia and 
New York; for in Birmingham, in addition to the tons 
of cutlery and buttons for which it is famous, are 
made many of the millions of shoes worn in Boston 
and Chicago and Philadelphia and New York. The 
vast Ames Daggett factory is in Birmingham; and the 
Ames Daggett footwear treads the soil of these United 
States all the way from Atlantic City to Long Beach. 

Now the Ames Daggett factory has not attained its 
present proportions and importance without mental 
alertness somewhere at its center. This mental alert¬ 
ness is in the head of Ames Daggett himself. Ames 
Daggett does not need to maintain a resident Efficiency 
Engineer in his plant, because he is his own Efficiency 
Engineer. Now one of the things he is always on the 
alert about, is the reduction of his labor turnover; 
and it would be interesting to consider the various 
schemes he has put into operation by which the labor 
turnover has been reduced from a very high per cent. 

3i6 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 


317 


to a very low one, but that is not part of the story. 
Another of his hobbies is the efficiency of the indi¬ 
vidual worker—the adaptation of the individual 
worker to the individual job, and his keeping of him¬ 
self fit for a maximum of individual production five- 
and-a-half days a week—and a part of this is part of 
the story. 

During the war, a great many men left the plant, 
and their places were filled by women and girls. At 
the close of the war, many of the men came back to 
their jobs, and many of the women and girls went 
home to domestic jobs; but enough of them remained 
to constitute a problem. Here they were, several hun¬ 
dred of them, of all ages from sixteen to sixty, of all 
types, all nationalities, all degrees of education, and 
of widely varying social backgrounds. Some were 
widows, some were married women with grown chil¬ 
dren, some with young children, some childless; the 
majority of them were unmarried, and young. They 
came to work in georgette crepe and French heels, in 
broken shoes and rags. They came undernourished 
and weak from too little food, and they came dull and 
headachy from the wrong kind of food. They came 
heavy with sleep from broken nights or late nights. 
Yet they were quick workers, deft, teachable, and, on 
the whole, more conscientious than the men. What 
might they not be if they were properly clad, properly 
nourished, properly rested, with their domestic wor¬ 
ries and complications properly straightened out? 

“ I don’t want one of your brisk, square-toed, 
trained Welfare Workers,” Ames Daggett had said, 


318 


THE MOULD 


irritably. “ One of these bright young women who 
will classify my girls as * types ’—and get about as 
much human response as you get from a type. I want 
a sort of worldly person—young, attractive-looking, 
smart, lots of style. The kind that the girls will copy 
her clothes. These girls wear their murderous high 
heels and cobweb hosiery and frail expensive dresses 
because they think that’s smart. They don’t under¬ 
stand that what’s smart for afternoon tea isn’t smart 
for business. You can’t make ’em do different by 
preaching hygiene and thrift at ’em. They’re human, 
same as our own daughters. But let ’em see that the 
smart thing for business-wear is the low-heeled shoe 
and the tailored suit or dress, and you won’t have to 
preach. 

“ But then I want one who’s shrewd, in addition. 
Size a girl up, you know; know how to get at this 
one and that one. Forceful, genuine, and friendly, 
all at once. And one that’s got the right ideas about 
things without being prudish. A darned good sales¬ 
woman into the bargain: one that can sell ’em virtue, 
so to speak, rather than trying to choke it down their 
throats like medicine. You get my idea.” 

“ Well, I know exactly the person you want,” spoke 
up one of the salesmen. “ Young enough—she’ll never 
see twenty again, but then again it’ll be quite some 
time, I imagine, before she’ll see thirty. Smart—I’ll 
tell the world. Right up to the minute, every day, in 
every way. Darned easy to look at, too, aside from 
that. And a saleswoman. Say! That girl’s the 
smartest kind: she could sell you most anything, but 


319 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 

she'd rather never sell you a cent's worth than sell you 
something you don t want. Want to know where you 
can find her, Mr. Daggett?” 

" Is she straight? ” 

“ Well, I’m a darned poor judge of character if she 
isn’t.” 

“ Where is she? ” 

“ Well, for the love of Mike don’t tell him I put 
you wise to her—she’s down at Rosenbaum’s; she’s his 
Boston manager; name’s Howard—Miss Howard.” 

( 2 ) 

So it came about that Ames Daggett, having fixed 
up matters amicably with Rosie, approached Katherine 
with a proposition that she should enter his plant as 
“ Secretary of the Department of Women ”—a vague 
title designed to afford scope within it for whatever 
duties might develop. 

The name “ Miss Howard ”—even “ Katherine 
Howard ”—awakened only a dim echo in Ames Dag¬ 
gett’s mind, and the echo went unnoticed. He had 
never been the confidant of his son Baldie. 

As for Katherine, she kept her own counsel. For 
the matter of that, Baldie’s name seldom passed her 
lips at any time. He had dealt her a more cruel hurt 
than she had ever received in her life from any other 
hand; and the end of the story had been tragedy. 

It was of these strange and totally unforeseen events 
—unforeseen twenty-four hours before the first of the 
chain occurred—that Katherine was thinking, one mid- 
December evening, as she sat alone in her office in the 


320 


THE MOULD 


Administration Building of the Daggett plant. The 
office force was gone. The stenographers' desks were 
closed and silent. The waiting-room was empty and 
dark. Outside, in the white dusk of a snowy evening, 
Market Street was surging with before-Christmas 
crowds, which were struggling ineffectually to dis¬ 
gorge themselves via the suburban trolleys. Inside, a 
single electric lamp, green-shaded, cast its light down 
in a circle, on a flat-topped desk littered with papers, 
and on the dark bent head of Katherine; on the white 
cuffs of her trim dark serge dress, and on her capable 
hands bringing order out of the paper chaos before 
her. 

The evening was the tag-end of an unusually hard 
day—how hard and how busy a day could be seen 
from the fact that the morning paper still lay at one 
side, neatly folded as it had been when delivered. 
Around it and on top of it lay a number of more 
significant pieces of printed matter which there had 
not been time to look over during the day, and which 
now must be examined and sorted, either into the 
waste-basket or into a pile ready for the filing-clerk, 
before another day should begin. Here were two or 
three reports from the Department of Labor at Wash¬ 
ington—a new United States Employment Bulletin— 
several communications from Chambers of Commerce 
—a sheet of printed statistics—a form letter from the 
State Division Chairman of the Woman's Committee 
of National Defense—a copy to be O. K.'d of the mid¬ 
month report from her office—a wire basket of cor¬ 
respondence to be signed—last of all, a square violet 


321 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 

envelope, still sealed, and adorned, on the flap, with a 
Red Cross stamp. 

Over this envelope, Katherine frowned. She 
glanced at her watch: six-twenty. She broke the seal, 
and drew the letter from the envelope. It was deli¬ 
cately written, with wide erratic margins, and it 
sprawled luxuriously over several sheets of expensive 
paper. 

“ Dreamwolde, December sixteen. 

“ Dearest Katherine : 

“ You got my invitation to the reception, I’m 
sure, and I hope you have already made up your mind 
to come. But in case you haven’t yet done so, this is 
just a wee note to beg you to be sure and come. I 
know you are a terribly busy and important person, 
but I shall be heart-broken if you don’t make a point 
of it this time. You know it is our second anniversary, 
beside being our housewarming. 

“ The floral decorations are going to be beautiful. 
Cavendar is doing them, and really he is outdoing 
himself for us. The feature is to be what he calls 
The Arch of Love Triumphant, an arch of dark crim¬ 
son jack roses with masses of those dark blue-purple 
Russian violets, breaking into a sort of foam of calla- 
lilies at the top. It’s to be in the center of the big 
drawing-room, and there we shall stand, under it, to 
receive. And—sh !—it is to cost fifteen hundred dol¬ 
lars ! It seems almost wicked to spend so much money 
in these times, doesn’t it, on anything so perishable— 
and yet, of course, it benefits so many working peo¬ 
ple -” 

Katherine raised her eyes, with a kind of wonder¬ 
ing pity in them. Bettina had had the soliciting of 
Angela, who was in her district, for the Christmas 



322 


THE MOULD 


Red Cross drive; and Bettina had told Katherine, in 
confidence, that Angela’s check had been drawn for 
twenty-five dollars. Twenty-five dollars !—And fifteen 
hundred for the glorifying, in one small detail, of 
Angela’s one-night display! Surely there was a lack 
of beautiful proportion here in Angela’s temple of life 
which she was building! 

Yet who was to blame? 

Not Angela, wholly. 

The curved surface of a bubble distorts the face of 
life which it reflects, jumbling its images into a bril¬ 
liant and colorful unreality. Why blame poor An¬ 
gela, a daughter of the bubble, for mistaking distor¬ 
tions for life’s standard of beauty—and building ac¬ 
cordingly ? 

“ Now do come, Kitty—I shall expect you! Don’t 
forget—to-morrow night—nine o’clock—there’ll be 
dancing. 

“ Lovingly as ever, 

“ Angela.” 

A faint whiff of fragrance—the same fragrance 
which had always appertained to Angela and all her 
dainty belongings—came to Katherine’s nostrils, as 
she slid the violet sheets back into their envelope. 
Odors are potent. To her dying day, that subtle scent 
would turn Katherine sick and faint. For Angela 
had added a postscript. 

. “ P. S. Isn’t it frightful about Baldie? They have 
given up the search.” 

With hands that trembled, Katherine snatched up 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 


323 


the unopened newspaper, and saw the head-lines: 
“ Search for multi-millionaire’s son given up. Com¬ 
panions return from far northwest.” 

Katherine dropped her head in her hands. The 
final news was no surprise to her. She had known 
that this would be the end, months before, when she 
received the last word she had ever had from Baldie. 

It had come to her that Monday morning after the 
Sunday evening when she settled the question of 
Paolo. She had waked, that morning, full of a great 
and joyous thankfulness. She could hardly wait to 
see Baldie, to tell him that she had faced the test and 
come out triumphant, that Paolo had gone out of her 
life forever, that the past had no ghosts she feared 
any longer, that her answer to his question need no 
longer be, “ I don’t dare ”; that it could be a glad, 
“ I will.” And then, instead of Baldie, had come 
Baldie’s note. 

It was most unlike Baldie’s usual correspondence, 
which had always been amusingly stilted and school- 
boyish. This note lived and breathed. It had been 
flung off flaming hot from the live coals of Baldie’s 
torture. It had no beginning, no ending. 

“ For God’s sake, Kat, if you care for him, marry 
him. I am going with Tony’s hunting-party and I 
hope to God I never come back.” 

No signature, even. And before her wounded pride 
--her pride that said Baldie had condemned her un¬ 
heard—had healed, he was gone. 

She had humbled herself sufficiently to write him 
one letter—a letter that endeavored stiffly to tell him 


324 


THE MOULD 


what no letter could tell. She had had no reply. If 
he had ever received it, it had failed to convey her 
message. The first news that reached her was the 
news that Baldie had become separated from the rest 
of the hunting-party and had been lost, far up in the 
northern snow-country, miles from any settlement. 
There was no shock of surprise in the news for 
Katherine. 

“ I hope to God I never come back.” 

So—he was not coming back. She could have told 
them that the long heart-breaking search, financed by 
Ames Daggett, would be in vain. . . . 

And she had done it. She had killed him. She had 
killed Baldie. 

“ I killed him five years ago,” she thought to her¬ 
self. 

She was both amazed and terrified at tracing the 
spreading, multiplying consequences of that one small 
illicit act of so long ago. It had for so long a time 
been sterile of consequence. . . . 

Or had it really been sterile? Had it not really 
had only the semblance of sterility? 

Had it not really (when one looked attentively at 
the chain of events) begun to develop consequences 
almost immediately—in the misery of Davis Vaughn? 

Hadn’t its consequences germinated and spread like 
an unwholesome fungus in her life, choking out what 
good impulses she had had? Landing her, at last, 
after a queer, abortive attempt at a pagan morality, 
in marsh-mud that might well have smothered her 
had she had just a little less vital resistance? 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 325 

Hadn’t moral disease, scaling off her, really in¬ 
fected Blanche? Wasn’t it really in those sparkling, 
ironic picturings of the bubble-world to Blanche, that 
the trouble (Blanche’s trouble) had begun? Not so 
much in anything wrong that Katherine had said, but 
just in her unconscious inevitable attitude toward the 
sort of life whose key-note had been a cynical material¬ 
ism—sensualism ? 

And it had ended in wrecking two lives: Baldie’s— 
and her own. 

She looked around her office, and a sudden fierce 
distaste for all that it represented possessed her. 

What was it all for—her long hours of work, her 
weariness, her self-denial? She had had no pleasures 
for three years. She had kept herself for her work. 
She had been a sort of ascetic. She had fought the 
good fight, and won it. To what end? 

That she might, in spite of all, see Baldie go to his 
death because of her. 

She flung out her arms in a gesture of passionate 
protest. She must forget! 

The violet envelope, with its faint subtle scent, 
tempted her. 

Soberly considered, she knew that Angela’s party 
was sinful, for all waste is sinful. The windows of 
the thirty rooms of Dreamwolde would be pouring a 
wasteful effulgence out into the night; the thirty 
rooms themselves, involving as they did not only the 
materials and labor of their original construction and 
furnishing, but also daily heat and service, were an 
extravagance, at least twenty of them being super- 


326 


THE MOULD 


fluous for the homely comfort—even for the luxurious 
comfort—of a family the size of Angela’s; hundreds 
of dollars’ worth of food, broken and whole, would 
be thrown out at the close of the party; thousands of 
dollars were to wither futilely in the heat on walls 
and casements and balustrades and Triumphal Arch 
of Love. 

And the extravagance of the guests would match 
the extravagance of the function. Hundreds of dol¬ 
lars would have been spent on the manicuring and 
massaging and painting and coiffing of women who 
would have looked more natural, human, genuine and 
pleasing to an unperverted taste if they had been 
simply sweet and clean and neat. Hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of dollars would have been spent on elaborate 
gowns, many of which would be worn once and then 
handed down to servants or poor relatives for whom 
they would be unsuitable. Millions of dollars in the 
year past would have been spent in padding and per¬ 
fuming the lives of the women who wore these gowns, 
most of whom, except for a little piffling dab at chari¬ 
ties, were totally unproductive: They did not change 
raw materials into cooked food; they did not change 
dirt and disorder into cleanly tidiness; they did not 
change whole cloth into clothes; they did not take care 
of their own children (if they had any) ; they did not 
do any of the world’s work—did not push the levers 
that cut the vamps of the world’s shoes or feed the 
paper onto the rollers that publish the world’s news— 
did not even hoist the elevators that carry the world’s 
business up and down high buildings; they did not 



ALPHA AND OMEGA 


32 ? 


contribute anything of value to the world’s beauty— 
neither writings nor paintings nor statues nor build¬ 
ings nor music; they did not contribute anything to the 
world’s store of truth, neither by research nor scien¬ 
tific experiment. 

And yet- 

She glanced at her wrist-watch. A quarter past 
seven. If she hurried, she could still get her dinner, 
bathe and dress and make the nine-thirty express into 
Boston. Should she go? There would be confetti and 
balloons and paper streamers and laughter and con¬ 
gratulations and music and dancing; dainty things to 
eat. If she could but leave behind her the memory 
of toiling women and girls, hungry for a normal al¬ 
lowance of the pleasure and beauty with which An¬ 
gela and her guests were surfeited, she would be able 
to feast her eyes ravenously on clouds of jeweled chif¬ 
fon, gleaming flesh, wonderful color-symphonies, bow¬ 
ers of blossom and satin. She might, for a little while, 
forget. 

Then, in imagination there arose before her the 
Arch of Love Triumphant, roses and violets foaming 
into lilies along its crest. . . . 

And suddenly Katherine dropped her head on her 
arms. 

“ Oh, Baldie ! Oh, Baldie ! ” she whispered. 



Winter passed and spring came and the days grew 
warm toward summer. 



328 


THE MOULD 


Katherine had not gone to Angela’s party, or to any 
other parties. She had found a better way of for¬ 
getting. That was to work ten, twelve, fourteen hours 
a day—and then sleep. Toward summer, however, 
the catch in this scheme became apparent. She had, 
all unnoted, been losing weight for several months. 
She had a driven feeling, and a jaded look, with an 
anxious roll to the eye, like a gallant horse that has 
been ridden too long on the spur. She began to feel 
as tired when she got up in the morning as she was 
when she went to bed at night; and it was soon after 
this that she began to dream. 

They came, the dreams, night after night, pressing 
in on her, wearing her out. They were all the same 
type of dream. Resolutely, all day long, she kept 
from thinking of Baldie by putting her mind assidu¬ 
ously on the problems of Flossie and Olga, Sonya and 
Tzvetana, Mrs. Mikelovitch and Mrs. Sudamak. But 
at night, when her will was off guard, thoughts of 
Baldie took possession of her mind and were distorted 
there into horrible shapes. 

She saw him far away, floundering in deep drifts of 
snow, throwing up an arm for help as he fell. . . . 

Sometimes she saw him close by, ghastly, emaciated, 
silent as in death, with open, glassy eyes. And there 
would be Paolo, leering. . . . Sometimes she 

would awake with a start, to hear the echo of a fright¬ 
ful cry ringing in her ears. . . . 

And soon she began to lie in a sort of stupor, half- 
dreaming, half-imagining worse horrors than she ever 
saw in her sleep. . . . 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 329 

But one night in May she dreamed her last dream 
of him. 

She was sitting late at her desk, as had become her 
custom. Drowsiness had stolen on her, unaware. 
Her head sank forward, pillowed on her arms, which 
rested on her desk. The shaded lamp above her head 
cast its bright circle of light down upon her dark 
hair, the white collar of her blouse, her shoulders, 
raised arms, and hands lying supine. All outside the 
bright circle was in twilight—the little office, the wood- 
and-glass partitions, the big outer office with the 
empty typewriter desks. Though she was resting so, 
with her eyes shut, she saw the door of the outer 
office open, and a stranger came in. It was a gaunt, 
grim stranger, and the sight of him frightened her. 
He came toward her, swiftly, through the empty outer 
office. He crossed the threshold of her door. He 
looked at her out of sunken eyes. She did not know 
him, and she felt a terror of him. 

He said, “ Kat! Kat! Don’t you know me? ” 

She rose up from her chair as if his eyes drew her 
up. She took a step toward him. 

And suddenly she screamed. 

It was no dream. Baldie had come back; alive; in 
the flesh. 


(4) 

“ I had to go, Kat. I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t 
want to come back. I meant never to come back.” 

The twilight of the office enfolded them gently, 
making confidences easy. 


330 


THE MOULD 


Baldie continued: “ It was easy enough to manage 
—the getting lost from the rest of them. Call it sui¬ 
cide, if you like. I didn’t think that far ahead. I 
only knew I wanted to get away from everybody I 
had ever known, and never see any of them again. 
Then when I cooled down, realized I was really irrev¬ 
ocably lost, and that death was staring me in the 
face—I was glad. Yes! Glad!” 

On the desk, by which they were sitting, within the 
sharp perimeter of the bright circle of light, lay one 
of Baldie’s hands, thin, bony, ridged with tendons. 
Katherine laid her own hands, in a passion of tender¬ 
ness, over it, hiding the pathos of its emaciation from 
her eyes. 

Baldie went on: “ Then this old fellow, this trap¬ 
per that I told you about, he found me. . . . 

“ Well, those four months that I was snowed in with 
him in his camp, no means of communication at all 
with the outside world, gave me lots of time to think, 
Kat. I realized I had been a fool. I ought to have 
waited and stood by. All the more if you thought 
you cared for him; if you had any mistaken idea 
you ought to marry him. I thought about lots of 
things—those four months. Nothing to do most of 
the time but think. . . . 

“ I said to myself, if I ever got back to civilization, 
I’d hit for home. I’d see you at least once. If you 
had bitter medicine for me, I’d take it like a 
man. . . ” 

He smiled happily at her, but she averted her eyes 
to hide the pitiful mist that clouded them. The sunken 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 


331 


hollows of Baldie’s kind blue eyes, the shadows be¬ 
tween cheek-bone and jaw-bone of Baldie’s face, once 
so round and boyish, smote her heart. 

“ But it’s over now, my dear, my dear,” she whis¬ 
pered. “ You have come back.” 

“ And you’ll marry me now, girl.” 

“ Yes, Baldie.” 

“ When ? ” 

“ Just as soon as I can get someone trained in to 
take charge of my work here.” 

“ I’ve waited a long time for you, girl,” pleaded 
Baldie. 

Katherine looked troubled. “ I’m sorry, dear,” she 
said, hesitatingly. “ It’s my cursed sense of respon¬ 
sibility. Goodness knows, a sense of responsibility 
was not easy for me to achieve. But I had to get one 
in order to pull through. Without it, I would never 
have got to be manager of Rosie’s—and of course your 
father would never have chosen me for this job 
here. 

“ And now I can’t, all in a minute, get rid of it! 
You see it’s really a sense of honor, you may say— 
the sort of honor a woman is not supposed or desired 
to have—that makes me feel that I can’t leave my job 
in the lurch. It’s a big, expensive experiment—this 
organization of the women of the plant into an in¬ 
telligent, loyal group. It’s a fine, forward-looking 
experiment. It would be a shame if it should fail. 
I wouldn’t want to be the one that jeopardized its 
success. You see, I’ve learned a good deal in the 
months I’ve been here. My successor ought not to 


332 


TEE MOULD 


have to start where I did. She ought to start where 
I leave off. That means that I ought to stand by till 
they find just the person they want, and then I ought 

to train her in. And yet- Oh, Baldie, my dear, 

my dear—down deep, nobody, honor nor job nor any¬ 
thing, matters with me just now but you.” 

She paused. 

“ I love you so, Baldie,” she said; and bowed her 
head on their clasped hands. 

Baldie looked down on her with a curious expres¬ 
sion in his sunken blue eyes. 

“ That’s the last stroke to making a man of me, 
Kat. You make me realize what an irresponsible trick 
it was for me to throw up the sponge and skip out— 
lay down on my job—and just when my dad was be¬ 
ginning to have some hopes of me, too. I never 
thought of it from that angle before. No, Kat, don’t 
you go back on that sense of responsibility. If more 
women had a sense of business honor, there’d be more 
men with a real respect for womanhood. You stick 
by your job, Kat. I’ll wait.” 

Katherine lifted her head. 

“ Do you suppose you can get a license at this 
hour?” she asked, thoughtfully. “ I think I could 
take three days off, without wrecking the plant! ” 

She jumped up. 

“ Beat it, old dear, as we say in the Department of 
Women! ” 

Baldie looked pathetically bewildered. 

She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. 

“ A license and a parson are the only necessities, 



ALPHA AND OMEGA 


333 


darlint,” she said, gravely, “ though your dad’s bless¬ 
ing would be a very nice addition. He and I are quite 
friends, Baldie.” 

" But ICat-! ” 

“We’ll have to wait a little while for our honey¬ 
moon and our nest-building, that’s all. It may not be 
the ideal way, but I’ve noticed that one is very seldom 
able to do anything in the ideal way in this old world.” 

“You mean-? ” cried Baldie, with a tone that 

was very like the tone of the Baldie of pre-Alaska 
days. 

“I do! ” cried Katherine. 

Baldie sprang up, still half-incredulous. 

“ We’re-?” 

“ Getting married! If you hurry! ” 

“ If- Oh, girl! Watch me break the speed- 

record ! ” 


( 5 ) 

Two hours later, the midnight local for Boston 
stopped at Birmingham and was boarded by an in¬ 
conspicuous pair—a gaunt young man in shabby 
clothes, and a young woman in a plain dark suit. 

The local was crowded, for there had been some 
sort of a celebration at the Casino at Lake Winne- 
waukee, the station above, and this was the last train 
down. 

Katherine and Baldie were unable to find seats to¬ 
gether. Katherine sat in with an elderly woman in 
a black head-scarf; Baldie sat across the aisle, two 
seats forward, and facing the coach. They were too 






334 


THE MOULD 


far apart to talk; too far even to exchange glances. 
Baldie folded his arms across his chest—a habit which, 
Katherine sensed, he had formed in the old trapper’s 
camp. His face settled into a sort of grim patience. 
So he must have looked, many and many a day, while, 
helpless to hurry it by even a day, he waited for the 
long winter to come to its end. With this look he 
must have endured the rigors of that unaccustomed 
life—the camp-chores, the hard bunk, the rude fare, 
the bitter cold repelled with difficulty, the lonesome¬ 
ness, the inactivity, the uncertainties of the future. It 
wrung her heart—that look. But once, when she 
caught his eye, he smiled, and she saw that it was, 
after all, a mask. He had been thinking happy 
thoughts beneath it. 

Yet the facial habit must have a corresponding 
mental habit. She wondered. It was odd to be 
sitting so near Baldie, and yet so far away. They 
were married; he was her husband; and yet, in 
every vital way, they were strangers. How much he 
had been through, in these last six months, of which 
she knew nothing! How much he had experienced! 
How much of it must have become a part of him, 
altering him vitally. How much there must be—tricks 
of manner, like this folding of the arms and slipping 
into the mask of grim patience—tricks of thought and 
feeling—that she would have to learn. 

For the matter of that, she, too, had changed. She 
thought back (moce than across the years, it seemed 
to her: into a different world, it seemed) and saw the 
super-girl of Montescue’s. Were that girl and she 


ALPHA AND OMEGA 


335 


really the same person? Was there anything at all of 
that girl left in her? Was the figure of the Potter and 
the Mould a good one? Was she simply that clay re¬ 
shaped? Or had she little by little, sluffed off that 
clay—she, an essential something within the clay— 
and little by little, taken on new ? 

Intent on this line of introspective speculation, and 
all the multiplying queries which branched out of it, 
Katherine, who had had little leisure for introspection 
in the last three years, lost all reckoning of time. It 
was with a start that she aroused herself to find her 
fellow-passengers surging into the aisle. Baldie was 
beside her. His hand was touching her arm. 

She looked up at him. His kind blue eyes smiled 
down at her. No, he was no stranger. How could 
she have thought so ? He might have taken on strange 
garments, strange lineaments, unfamiliar postures, but 
the old essential Baldie was the same. 

Perhaps it was the same with her. Perhaps Baldie* 
looking at her, saw the same Katherine he had seen 
five years ago, against the old brick wall and ever¬ 
green hedge of Montescue’s on Class-Day. Perhaps 
he alone, in those days, had seen her; as only the 
flower-lover sees, in the hard green bud, the rose. 

She stood up. Baldie’s arm, doubtless glad of the 
excuse, went around her, drawing her into the aisle 
and protecting her from the pressure of the pushing 
crowd. 

A conductor, belatedly, put his head in at the door 
of the coach: “ North Station! Enda the rout! ” 

But it was not the end, by any means, thought Kath- 


336 


THE MOULD 


erine. It was the beginning. She and Baldie had just 
become themselves. They—the real Baldie and the 
real Katherine—had only just finished coming into 
existence. Only now were they ready to take their 
true places in the world; to make their contributions 
to it. Life was all ahead of them. It was not the 
“ enda the rout.” It was the beginning—the very be¬ 
ginning. 


FINIS 































































































































































